#jason would like to know how solicitors have found his phone number

[itsdabatt]

[jinmukangwrites]

Nightwing Bad Things Happen Bingo: Locked Up and Left Behind

X/Done Heart/Next WiFi/Requested

Ever since Jason was brought into the Wayne family, kidnappings came to be a rare occurrence. Dick’s theory was that most criminals realized how stupid it was to go after Bruce Wayne, especially now that he was more public with funding Batman and the Justice League. Dick had been kidnapped hundreds of times and not a single perp got a single coin out of it. Just a lot of bruises from Batman and a long sentence to prison.

Jason… when he was alive… got kidnapped once or twice, but he was usually rescued fairly quickly since the only people risking getting Batman and the League on their tail were idiots. As he grew up and Bruce hadn’t met a single demand of any kidnapper and still got Jason back safe and sound, and as time went by kidnappers just kind of… gave up.

And then Bruce adopted Tim, and no one remembered that kidnapping was a thing until Bruce got the phone call.

Dick happened to be there. He was over visiting the manor mostly because Alfred mentioned how lonely the manor had been and how Tim spent most of his days locked up in his room. Another reason for being there was that Bruce was still hurting and brooding over the grave, as if it was his fault Ra’s Al Ghul and Joker decided to be evil. Dick was still aching too, he would be lying if he said he didn’t hope to see a shit-eating grin on a familiar boy’s face when he walked in.

He was sitting in Bruce’s study, just lounging on one of the chairs set off to the side that were set there just in case Bruce actually wanted to talk to people in his office. Bruce usually didn’t, but that never stopped Dick from barging in, plopping himself down on a chair, and pulling out his phone to play whatever weird app he found a couple minutes before. This time it was a color by number game.

He was working on the number 25 when the phone on Bruce’s desk began to ring. Bruce looked up from whatever papers he had been going through and lifted an eyebrow at the phone. It was almost three in the afternoon and Bruce had no scheduled talks or meetings with anyone, so the caller could be just some random phone solicitor that got lucky enough to call Bruce Wayne. After a few more rings, Bruce sighed and lifted the phone to his ear.

“Bruce Wayne speaking,” he said in a perfect businessman tone.

Dick rolled his eyes and went back to his game, but his attention was quickly back on Bruce when he heard a sharp growl. “What it the meaning of this?!”

A deep pit suddenly formed in Dick’s stomach as his mind went through all the scenarios that could get this reaction out of Bruce.

“Don’t touch a hair on his head,” Bruce practically yelled into the phone and Dick felt like he needed to puke. Bruce looked genuinely worried. “You hear me?!”

It hit him like a truck when Dick realized school ended more than a hour ago.

Tim should have been home.

“I want to talk to him.”

Dick remembered all the times Bruce said that, but it was Dick he wanted to talk to. There were a number of different ways the criminals would react to that. Some would hand Dick the phone, some would shove the phone against his ear, some would refuse, and there were a rare, heartless few that-

The sound of a agonized filled scream sounded over the phones speakers, reaching Dick’s ears. He stood up from the couch and stood there helplessly as Bruce yelled into the phone.

A rare, heartless few that proved life by making it known they have no problem taking it.

Dick could hear sobbing over the low, incoherent voice of the kidnapper from the phone. It made Dick want to join in on crying.

Suddenly, all noise cut off with a beep and Bruce was left yelling at a ended call to not hang up!

“Bruce?” Dick asked. Dick never had that much experience with being on this end of kidnappings. Sure, it had happened a couple times with Jason but Dick never got used to it.

If the way Bruce was getting up from his desk and slamming the phone down on sharp and jerky movements was anything to go by, Bruce had never gotten used to it too.

“Go to the school. Trace his steps,” Bruce ordered.

“What about you?” Dick asked, already backing up towards the study door.

“I’m calling Commissioner Gordon, then Batman will join you.”

-o-o-o-o-

Batman never joined. The reason being so was that Bruce Wayne got another call from the kidnappers to negotiate the life of a 14 year old boy while with Gordon. He was practically being forced to stay at home with a couple cops to watch over him. Thankfully, Gordon didn’t exactly know Dick was back in town.

So he was forced to find out out on his own what happened. He first went to the school and checked the cameras. Tim made it out in one piece, he was busy talking to some friends and their conversation lasted until he got to the front gates of the school. There were no more cameras from there, so he checked the traffic cameras. There weren’t many, just mostly at the intersections to check for people running red lights, but was able to follow Tim a couple blocks. He was probably going to the public bus stop since Alfred was out of town—he insisted on just taking the bus and Bruce and Dick didn’t fight him on it.

Dick checked the cameras at the bus stop and waited… Tim never showed up.

So, in-between the last traffic intersection and the bus stop, Tim was taken. That’s a whole block of street.

As Dick Grayson, dressed in inconspicuous attire, he walked up and down the street with a picture of Tim. He couldn’t find any cameras so he had to resort to asking side street shops, homeless people, and street performers if they’ve seen “my little brother”.

Hmm, he looks familiar… oh yeah, he was that kid who waved at me earlier. I think he was just walking down the street.

He gave me a twenty after my song. Nice kid. But he looked a little nervous. He turned the way he came from and walked quickly away. I hope he’s okay.

Yeah the brat ran into me like a bat out of hell. Knocked my groceries everywhere.

Ah, he ran into the alley. Was there anyone following him? Ah… I think a car turned into the alley a bit after him. Make and model? What are you a cop?

Spare some change? Oh. That boy… Yeah… I saw him… look, I can’t just give information for free… oh thank you kind sir. Right, so he ran in here looking all crazy. I hid behind the dumpster because… crazy people are bad news for people like me. It’s a good thing I did because this black van pulled into the alley and drove up next to him. Some guys came out and grabbed him, I think they drugged him I don’t know, and drove off. Yeah, I did nothing! Its none of my business.

The homeless person shuffled away to heaven knew where and Dick was left standing in the middle of stinking alleyway, limply holding a picture of Tim. Black van. Classic but effective. It’s also easy to find on a traffic cam.

-o-o-o-o-

Dick checked every camera he could and after a few agonizing hours, he finally found the van just barely skimming the corner of the feed of a camera on the inside of a gas station. The van purposely avoided every camera that watched the streets, but Dick thankfully lucked out. The van was black and there was a blurry image of a man at the steering wheel. The more he looked, he noticed the black of the van was actually a sloppy paint work. Probably spray paint. He zoomed in and used every program he had access to to clear up the image. Under the black paint was a logo… if he could just get it clear enough to read…

Finally, the logo became clear enough for him to read. Without wasting a second, Dick slipped into his suit and swung out into the now darkening city.

-o-o-o-o-

It was the logo of an old grocery shop down in the slums. It remained open mostly because it was the only cheap place to get okay food for the people that lived in the area. The grocery shop used to do house orders, which is the reason they would have cars with logos on them.

It only took Nightwing thirty minutes to arrive at the store. It was closed and the lights on the inside were off. Didn’t matter, Nightwing just went there really to see if he could find a list of the employees, but when he looked to the side of the building he saw a familiar van.

All of a sudden, things were so much more urgent because Tim was in there.

He snuck over to the windows and looked inside. The aisles were short and close together, most were pretty bare, waiting for someone to restock. Other than that, the building was eerily empty.

He silently picked the lock on the doors and went inside like a shadow. It was silent, not even a humming of the AC could be heard. He swallowed and continued deeper into the building. He turned into a door that said “employees only” and slipped in.

The other side of the door was split into three areas. One lined the back of the fridges where chilled items like milk and eggs could be stocked easily. There were boxes stacked on top of boxes in that section, it was also about the temperature of a fridge, but other than that, it was empty. The second section was filled with large metal structures for normal storage. Glass jars and chip bags stuffed into boxes sat on the shelves. Nightwing took his time looking around each corner of the section, there were too many places for someone to hide it seemed, but after extensive search, Nightwing’s search came out to be fruitless.

The last section was behind a large metal door with big red letters that said “KEEP CLOSED”. Nightwing had to put his whole body weight into sliding the door open, and when he did he was met with below zero temperatures.

The freezer.

He stopped at the entrance and looked into the darkness of the freezer with nothing but his night vision. There were metal shelves and pallets littering the floor. Too many places to hide, but not a very comfortable one. He could see his breath puff up in front of his face and the cold was already biting through his suit. At first glance, the freezer looked empty. He sighed, watching his breath rise, already considering leaving and looking for other places the kidnappers could have hid.

However, for the first time since he got to the grocery shop, he heard something.

It was muffled and scared sounding. Whimpers and sniffles.

Tim.

Nightwing went deeper into the freezer, ignoring how he could already feel goosebumps forming on his arms. He turned around a shelf and came to a stop when he saw Tim.

Or at least, Tim was the first thing he saw. He was tied to a metal chair with his hands probably duct taped behind him. His ankles were restrained in a similar way to the legs of the chair. He had a length of tape stuck over his mouth and even more wrapped around his head to blindfold him. A dark stain covered his shirt near to his shoulder, probably blood from whatever they’ve done to him when Bruce asked to talk to Tim. He was shivering, stripped down to just his undershirt and boxers. Snot ran out of his nostrils and trailed over the tape gagging him.

Unfortunately though, Tim wasn’t alone.

There was a man standing casually behind Tim, one arm wrapped around Tim’s shoulders and a hand pressed a gun to Tim’s temple like it was the easiest thing in the world. He had a ski mask on.

“Well,” the man said and pressed the gun harder into Tim’s temple, making a horrid mark, “I was expecting Batman.”

Expecting?

Stars exploded at the back of his head.

Nightwing felt the world tilt and his body go down with it. He stumbled and landed on the ground, just barely able to catch himself on his hands and knees. He immediately pushed himself to his feet to face whoever had snuck up on him while he was busy being terrified of how terrible people could be, but the world exploded into blinding light.

Or someone just turned on the lights and his night vision freaked out.

Nightwing called out and squeezed his eyes shut. His skull ached from whatever he had been hit with and the cold was numbing his hands. He could only imagine how cold Tim was.

He heard something swing, but he wasn’t fast enough to dodge some kind of bar as it swung at his head. It cut the skin above his eyebrow and knocked him off his feet. He landed roughly on the ground and groaned when hands latched onto him and began to take his escrima sticks.

He forced his stinging eyes open, thankful that his mask had automatically turned off the night vision, but the sight that he saw was the man grinning from his eyes and holding the gun store an uncomfortable angle under Tim’s jaw.

“Stand down or I blow the kids brains out.”

Tim tried to shove the man off to the best of his abilities, but the man held him too tight. Dick had no doubt the man would shoot Tim. By the looks of it, he already stabbed him. Nightwing forced him to relax into the ground. He forced himself to allow gloved hands to lift him up and shove him against one of the shelves of the freezer.

Forced himself to remain still as his suit was put in the process of being stripped from his body.

“Where’s Batman?” The man asked. Nightwing glared and ignored how his shoulders were shaking. He clenched his jaw to stop the chittering before it started. The man sighed at Nightwing’s silence and pressed the gun harder into Tim’s jaw. Tim made a strangled whimpering sound at the back of his throat. “Where’s the Bat, Nightwing?”

Nightwing loosened his jaw and shot a quick glare at the men, there were multiple, who had finally stripped home down to his underwear. All he had was his mask which he hoped beyond hope they would leave alone. Before he knew it, his hands were zip tied in front of him with multiple and heavy duty ties. “Not coming,” Nighting growled out, “he couldn’t make it. Sent me.”

The ties dug into his skin as the men shoved him forward and forced his arms upward, where chains were hanging. His arms were wrapped up in the chains and a lock and key held them tight against his bare arms. The metal felt colder than ice and the air on his bare skin felt like torture. His jaw was shaking even as he tried to keep it still.

The men backed off and the man who held the gun against Tim finally lowered it. Nightwing couldn’t help the shuddering breath of relief that came out of him. The man cut the tape holding Tim’s ankles to the chair and hefted Tim up by the back of his shirt. Tim shook his shoulders but he didn’t look strong enough to shake off a fly, let alone the grasp of a psycho.

“I suppose we’ll have have to hope you’re telling the truth, or else the kid gets it.”

“D- don’t do this,” Nighting tried, as last resort, “there’s oth-other w-w-ays-”

His whole body was shaking and his fingers were already numb. The man laughed and began to drag Tim out of the freezer. No one said anything more as one of the other men slapped a piece of tape over Nightwing’s mouth and followed the leader out. The lights were shut off and the door of the freezer was rolled shut. There was the sound of chains on the other side of the door and Nightwing realized that they were locking the door shut. Even if he got out of his restraints, he would still be stuck.

He shivered in the dark, desperately looking for ways to escape and save Tim, but as his nose began to run, he already knew there were no options other to wait. He couldn’t move from his spot and his limbs were too numb to try and escape the locked chains. All he could do was wait and try to keep his body temperature up for as long as he could.

He lasted an hour and a half. He stopped shivering and blood trailed down his arms from the ties. His legs were so week he could hardly stand up any longer, leaving him to dangle from the chains, which would have hurt if his whole body wasn’t so numb.

His eyes were too heavy to keep open, and he realized that with Bruce being public about his funding both forced the idiots to stop trying, and the smart ones to get smarter.

-o-o-o-o-

Just, honestly, from now on, expect these to end early. Find the rest on AO3!

[jinmukangwrites]

Locked up and Left Behind, Nightwing

Nightwing Bad Things Happen Bingo

@badthingshappenbingo​

Link because for some reason this isn't working and I'm getting tired of it...