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English
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batman fics even tho i know nothing about batman
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Published:
2024-08-02
Completed:
2024-08-13
Words:
2,309
Chapters:
2/2
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30
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423
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Safehouse

Summary:

Tim Drake has been kidnapped by Red Hood, and even though he isn’t entirely sure why, it’s clearly his own fault.
Still, Hood’s plan is simple enough: Beat Timmy to a pulp, then wait for Bruce to show up so he can kill Tim before his very eyes.
However, Hood grows increasingly upset and concerned(?) when Tim insists that Batman won’t be coming to save him.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Tim had been kidnapped. It was his own fault, really, for letting himself get caught. He should’ve kept his guard up better, and now he had to deal with the consequences. The cold concrete seeped into his bones as he hazily looked up at Red Hood, a new player in Crime Alley, who was standing over his prone body, artfully adding more breaks and bruises to Tim’s rapidly growing collection. Hood was conversationally explaining his plans as he beat him to a pulp, and Tim was trying to focus on his voice rather than the excruciating pain he was in at the moment.
“I’ll get you to the brink of death — but not quite, mind you — and then, when Bruce shows up to save you, slit your throat before his very eyes,” Hood described. Tim couldn’t help but let out a wheezing laugh, blood spraying from his lips as he did so.
“He won’t try to save me,” he informed him. “You might have to rearrange your plans.
Hood paused for a moment, growing angrier before snapping, “Of course he’ll come for you. You’re his precious little Robin. He chose you, Replacement.”
He punctuated almost every word with some blow, emphasizing the ending with a stomp to his wrist that almost certainly shattered something. Probably multiple somethings.
“He didn’t choose me,” Tim protested. “I made him do it.”
“Most people don’t see replacements as their sons!” Hood snarled, landing a painful kick to Tim’s side. He seemed weirdly emotionally invested in the whole affair, but this wasn’t really the time to ponder the mysteries of the universe.
“He doesn’t. I’m a replacement Robin, that’s it. I’m a stand-in, a temporary fix, so if you’re really looking to send some sort of message, I’m useless to you, just like I’m useless to everyone, in the long run,” Tim mumbled halfheartedly. Hood seemed mildly perturbed, but soldiered on.
“I’ll kill you!” he threatened, bringing the crowbar down on Tim’s left shoulder with a sickening crack.
“Not like anyone will notice,” Tim commented passively, spitting up a bit more blood as he began to shake. His head was ringing and his body was thrumming with pain from the last strike. Hood seemed extremely off-put at this point. He had clearly expected a very different reaction, but to Tim’s surprise he now actually started to sound concerned.
“But Bruce adopted you, he has to notice,” he pointed out, nudging his side lightly with the toe of his steel-tipped boot. Tim laughed again, genuinely a bit amused at that, ignoring the pain it caused him.
“He would never adopt me,” he voiced, the entire notion sounding ridiculous. “My parents are alive, anyway.”
“But they would notice then, right?” Hood probed, an ‘ah-ha’ in his tone.
“Not unless they actually came home for more than a day a year,” Tim practically spat. Then he let out a deep, bone-tired sigh, seeming to sag under the weight of the world as the fire drained out of him. “It’s okay though. They’re busy, and I’ve always managed.”
“Managed?” Hood demanded, now upset for a far different reason. “How long have you been ‘managing’ without them?”
Tim tried to make a shrugging motion without moving his shoulders, though he really just ended up lolling his head to the side a bit as he attempted to stay conscious.
“Mmmm… five?” he guesstimated.
“Five years?” Hood assumed. Tim attempted to shake his head, but the abrupt motion made his skull explode in pain.
“Five years old,” he whimpered, shifting slightly as if to get comfortable, but letting out a whine of pain and giving up on moving altogether.
“And Bruce didn’t notice?” Red Hood growled. Tim was confused. As far as he could tell, Hood was angry on his behalf now, but that didn’t make any sense. “Why didn’t Dick?”
Tim just sighed, a nonverbal ‘I don’t know.’
Hood ripped off his helmet and turned away, raking his fingers through his hair and tugging at it, clearly deep in thought. A few deep breaths later, and he was looking over at Tim, examining him in a new light. He looked disgusted by what he saw, and Tim expected him to go back to beating him up. Instead, he turned back around and vomited all over the floor.
“A kid…” Tim faintly heard him mutter before he returned to Tim’s side. He kneeled, and Tim flinched away, only to groan in pain and spit up more blood as his eyes threatened to flutter shut. Suddenly, his hands were touching him with a shocking gentleness, and things were being wrapped around his wounds. Tim howled in pain as he set his broken bones and put them in splints and slings, but didn’t resist otherwise, tears leaking from under his eyelids.
He almost blacked out from pain when Hood finally slid his arms under him and picked him up in a bridal-style carry. He avoided jostling him when he could, but Tim still whimpered in pain every other second. He murmured soothing words and apologies, a complete one-eighty from his previous actions and demeanor. Tim was placed gently in a car, and despite his best efforts, dozed off almost immediately.
Somehow, he had a feeling that he would be safe when he woke up.

Chapter 2

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Tim was warm. So, so warm, and comfortable, and content, wrapped up in a soft blanket, lying on what felt like the most high-quality couch he had ever crashed on.
It bothered him.
Tim was never comfortable when he slept. He usually passed out mid-coding, hacking, or researching, and spent his time asleep with his face smashed into the keyboard. The times he ran himself into the ground and Alfred forced him to actually sleep “voluntarily,” he flopped lifelessly onto his bed and slept spread-eagle on top of his blanket.
Something must be wrong. Maybe Alfred or Dick had drugged him at their last family dinner? That still didn’t explain why he was on a couch. They would’ve taken him up to his room, and put him on his bed. Unless he had gone to Dick’s apartment, but honestly he was having trouble remembering what had happened before he fell asleep.
Dully, it occurred to him that it might be easier to figure out where he was if he opened his eyes. It was somehow unsurprising that it was a somewhat momentous task, and that once he achieved it he immediately closed them once again, squeezing them shut to keep out the dim, warm light of a lamp somewhere in the room. Still determined to puzzle it out, he attempted to open his eyes once again, slowly easing his eyelids up and giving himself plenty of time to adjust to the light.
That was the plan, anyway.
The moment he got a good look at his surroundings, he nearly passed out again, memories beginning to leak back at the sight of an oddly familiar red helmet resting on the side table.
He began to breathe faster, almost erratically, and tried to sit up—
Too fast.
He bit his lip and groaned to keep from screaming in agony as his abrupt movement agitated his numerous injuries. With all the self-control he could muster in his fragile state, he slowly began lowering himself back down to prevent further injury, screwing his eyes shut against the inevitable horrible pain that he was learning to associate with moving. Suddenly, a cool hand slipped behind his neck, supporting his aching head. His eyes snapped open to find Red Hood looming over him, though the anger and violence was completely absent.
He gently guided his head back down onto the pillow, murmuring indistinctly, though it sounded like words of comfort. Tim resisted every instinct in him to whimper in fear or do something stupid like scream. Finally, when Tim was settled back in, he heard the soft friction as Hood dragged a chair across the carpet and sat beside him, sighing heavily.
Seconds passed in silence, and Tim, despite his terror, was just about to succumb to the urge to sleep when Hood abruptly spoke.
“I’m sorry. I— I screwed up majorly, and you have every right to hate me. I promised I’d never hurt kids, and I broke that promise, and I swear on my grave that I will never make the same mistake again. I’ll turn myself over to Bruce and he can send me to Blackgate or—”
“You know our identities?” Tim asked, his voice shaking.
“Uh yeah, Timmy, I know,” Hood confirmed.
Tim flinched slightly at the nickname. Only his parents called him that. However, he wouldn’t dare correct Hood. After all, his life could be on the line. Well, actually, Hood claimed it wouldn’t, since he ‘didn’t hurt kids,’ but that didn’t account for Tim’s injuries.
“W— what are you— gonna do to me?”
“Nothing, Tim. I— I’m messed up in the head, and I won’t claim that none of what happened was my fault, but there’s this thing? And I get… really… angry, and a lot of the time it makes me do things that I would never actually do otherwise,” Hood explained. “I— I feel horrible for hurting you, Tim. I don’t know how to fix it— I don’t know if I can fix it.”
Tim thought through it all carefully, and decided that even though he didn’t have all the facts, what Hood had told him made sense, especially when aligned with his odd behavior.
“Okay, I forgive you,” Tim decided.
Hood paused, completely caught off-guard.
“You what?” he demanded incredulously.
“I forgive you,” Tim repeated. “It wasn’t your fault, and you’re sorry, so I forgive you.”
“Just like that?” Hood questioned, confused and slightly suspicious.
“I mean, that’s how it works,” Tim informed him, though a hint of uncertainty worked its way into his voice, as if to add in an unspoken little ‘it is, right?’
“Not — Well — I guess. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t hurt you. Aren’t you angry? Upset? Something?” Hood questioned, concerned. Tim wasn’t quite sure why, though.
“No? I mean, I don’t really know. It’s not unusual, I guess is what I’m saying. Like obviously there’s a reason, so it’s fine. Like how my parents wanted me to be better, and I wasn’t, or how Bruce and Dick wanted Jason instead of me but they were stuck with me instead,” Tim tried to explain. Hood seemed stunned, like he had just been hit with a truck full of TNT. Then, to his shock, Hood leaned over and felt his forehead, as if checking to see if Tim had a fever.
“Are you insane? Are your parents insane? Did Bruce, Dick and — god forbid — Alfred go insane since I died and I somehow missed it?” he ranted, standing and pacing back and forth. “Who the fuck do they think they are to hurt you?”
Tim shrugged, trying to stay calm and not shrink away from the frankly frightening anger in his voice, but his mind was working overtime, trying to figure it out and put his finger on the answer until—
“Jason?” he gasped.
“The one and only,” he replied sarcastically, plopping back down, running his fingers through his hair, and pulling his mask off.
“Oh my god, it’s really you,” he breathed, drinking in the face of his Robin, first (brief) crush and all-time favorite hero.
“Something like that.”
“Oh my god,” he repeated, shifting to view him better.
“You are looking at me way too affectionately for someone I just brought to the brink of death,” Jason (Jason!) observed, looking perturbed. Tim bit his lip, trying to tone down his excitement, but it wasn’t too effective.
“Um, sorry,” he apologized. Jason scowled at that.
“No saying sorry to me. I almost killed you.”
“Uh, right. So—”
“Tim!” Jason scolded playfully.
“Sorry! I mean—”
They both burst into laughter at that point, causing Tim considerable pain, but it was fine until he began giggling uncontrollably, and suddenly his eyes opened wide, panicked, and his breaths grew short and ragged.
“Stop— tee-hee-hee— me— hahaha-hee-hee,” he wheezed out, and Jason hesitantly did as he was told, covering his mouth and holding his convulsing chest down. Eventually, the giggles subsided, and Jason had questions.
“What was that?” he questioned, highly concerned. Tim pursed his lips.
“When I was eight I was kidnapped. By the Joker.” Jason’s jaw visibly clenched, but Tim continued, “I managed to escape a couple years later, but in that time, the Joker basically tortured me and created an alternate persona for me, Joker Junior. He’s gone now, for the most part, but… well, sometimes…” he trailed off, taking in the murderous look on Jason’s face. He shrunk back, terrified, but luckily the other snapped out of it fast.
“I— Tim, how— I mean— does Bruce know?” he finally stuttered out. Tim wordlessly shook his head.
“I’ve been lucky so far,” he said grimly. “Bruce just about snaps at every mention of the Joker, and Dick actually does snap. Alfred… well, he’s Alfred, so I know he’d be understanding, but it’d hurt him, too. I can’t do that to him.”
Jason didn’t look happy.
“Tim, when was the last time they asked you how you were doing or tended to your wounds after patrol?” Jason inquired. He had been a part of that family for over three years; he knew they weren’t big on hugs, words of comfort, or thank-yous, but their love still showed in other ways.
“Uhh… March?” Tim guesstimated. Jason relaxed slightly, almost smiling, since that wasn’t horribly long ago by their family’s standards, until Tim added, “A little over a year ago, so not bad.”
“Not bad?” Jason demanded, realizing that Tim had meant Marvh of last year. His mouth dropped open.
Tim bit his lip. “Yes?”
“I’m making you spaghetti.”
And with that, he was gone.

Notes:

Ok, I seriously need ur ppls help/opinions. Should I ship them or should it be more brothers/mentor relationship?
I’m currently working on my romantic relationship building and figuring out how to make it seem realistic since I’m not only on the asexual spectrum but also have never actually dated anyone (by choice lol)
I would be happy w either, but I am way too indecisive when it comes to plots XD

Let me know in the comments!!

Notes:

Should I continue it??