try and help you
Title: try and help you
Author: somehowunbroken
Beta: shinysylver
Fandom: DCU
Characters: Tim Drake, Jason Todd
Word Count: 1,670
Rating: R/swearing and some mostly not graphic violence
Notes: For camshaft22, because she is, in fact, awesome, and she understands my feeeeelings about the Robins. Written for hc_bingo's February postage stamp challenge, using the prompts forced to rely on enemy/rival, captivity, homesickness, and abandonment issues. Title from "Barricade" by Stars.
Summary: “This is not good,” Tim mutters, looking around the small cell again. “Seriously, this isn’t good at all.”
“This is not good,” Tim mutters, looking around the small cell again. “Seriously, this isn’t good at all.”
“Gee, you don’t say,” Jason replies, voice full of sarcastic surprise. He’s lying near the wall of the cell, hands folded behind his head, feet planted on the floor. He looks for all the world like he’s just relaxing, if you discount the way that he seems poised to flip up onto his feet at a moment’s notice. “Got any ideas, baby bird?”
Tim narrows his eyes at the door, considering. “If they hadn’t taken my belt-”
“Or my knives, or my gun, or my jacket,” Jason cuts in, rolling his eyes. “If they’d left us our shit, we’d be out of here already, which proves that they’re smarter than your average bear.”
“Your jacket?” Tim repeats. “Do I even want to know how that would get us out of here?”
Jason shrugs. “Lock picks sewn into the seam.”
“Of course there are,” Tim mutters. He’s already checked the small compartment in the bottom of his boot. His picks are gone. “I’ve got nothing at the moment. You?”
Jason shrugs against the floor, making his shirt ride up an inch or two. “Working on it. I’ll let you know.”
“You do that,” Tim says, leaning back against the wall and scanning the cell yet again.
-0-
“Well, this sucks,” Jason says as the door slams shut. He’s bleeding, Tim notices, but he’s still on his feet, so their captors hadn’t hurt him too badly.
Or they had and Jason is covering well, or he’s hurt internally, or-
“Whatever you’re thinking, stop it,” Jason orders, walking back to his spot near the wall and sitting down slowly. He’s got a hand pressed just under his ribs on his left side, and the blood is soaking out from underneath it. “It’s a scratch. It’ll heal.”
“Let me see,” Tim says, kneeling down beside Jason and reaching for the hem of his shirt. Jason grabs Tim’s hand with a glare.
“It’ll heal,” he repeats, squeezing Tim’s hand warningly. “Hands off. Unless you want to waste some time the interesting way,” Jason adds with a smirk.
Tim sits back on his heels. “We just have to wait until B figures out where we are,” he says, ignoring Jason’s leer with an ease born of practice. “There are trackers in your things and in mine. It’s just a matter of time until he shows up and gets us out of here.”
“Cold warehouse, psychopaths trying to beat me up, creepy clown voices,” Jason says thoughtfully. “Last time I was in this situation, it didn’t end so well for me.”
Tim’s stomach turns cold. “You heard the Joker?”
Jason shrugs. “To be honest, baby bird, I have no fucking idea.” He drops Tim’s hand and reaches up to tap his own forehead. “I tend to think he’s after me a lot of the time, and our charming accommodations are kind of bringing back a lot of shit that I hoped I wouldn’t have to live through again.”
Tim lays his hand on the floor before clenching it into a fist. “We just have to wait,” he repeats. “A few more hours, that’s all.”
Jason closes his eyes. “Whatever helps you get through this.”
-0-
The good thing about being dragged out of the cell, Tim thinks, is that he can tell Jason that he’s no crazier than usual when he gets back. The Joker is, indeed, present and accounted for, doing his usual song and dance routine while smacking Tim around. Tim counts the ribs he thinks are broken and the ones that are probably just bruised as the Joker alternates between cackling, aiming kicks at Tim’s midsection, and spouting rhetoric. Tim estimates that he’s out of the cell for less than half an hour before he’s dragged back down the hallway and shoved inside.
“Fuckers,” Jason spits as Tim stumbles into the wall. He manages to catch himself and use the wall to help him slump to the ground. “What’s the damage?”
“Three broken ribs, a few more cracked, and massive bruising,” Tim rattles off. “Also a headache, but that’s probably due more to listening to the Joker talk about world domination than any potential concussions.”
Jason’s hands go still by his sides. “So I did hear him.”
“You did,” Tim agrees. “I guess that’s our upside and downside all at the same time.”
“There’s an upside to it being the Joker?” Jason asks as he carefully crouches down and reaches for Tim’s shirt. Tim bats his hands away, but Jason rolls his eyes and yanks Tim’s shirt up anyway.
“You’re not imagining it,” Tim says. “Means you’re still capable of helping to get us out of here.”
Jason narrows his eyes at the purple that’s already blooming across Tim’s ribs. “Small mercies there.”
“At least I won’t have to drag you out,” Tim says, deliberately light. “Satisfied that I’m not bleeding out?”
Jason snorts and pulls Tim’s shirt back into place. “Just making sure. Can’t blame a guy.”
Tim eyes the hem of Jason’s shirt, then raises an eyebrow. Jason just grins.
-0-
“It shouldn’t be long,” Tim says, ignoring Jason’s attempt to shove him away by putting more pressure against the rag of Jason’s shirt, now balled up and held against his side. Jason hisses out a breath and leans back against the wall. He’s sweating, and Tim knows it’s not due to the temperature. Tim tries not to think about how long the Joker had had Jason out of the cell this time, and the damage he’d been able to inflict. “Hey, do me a favor, will you? Don’t catch some sort of infection.”
“Doing my best,” Jason says shortly, focusing on a spot somewhere over Tim’s shoulder. “Not making any promises, baby bird.”
“Why isn’t he slicing me up?” Tim asks, pulling the shirt away and checking on the wound. It’s long, curving from Jason’s navel to the bottom of his ribcage. It’s deep enough to be painful and cause a lot of slow blood loss, but shallow enough that it’s not going to kill Jason outright any time soon. Tim frowns and presses the makeshift bandage back into place.
“Jealous?” Jason grins. It’s ghoulish, the way he’s able to smile almost like he means it while bleeding and trembling. “I’m sure if you ask real nice he’ll give you a scar to match this one.”
Tim shakes his head. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
“He’s got a thing for me,” Jason offers. “I’m not just saying that, either. I’m the one he beat bloody and blew to kingdom come, and I didn’t have the good sense to stay there, so he’s got a special kind of hate-on for me.”
“Fantastic,” Tim mutters. “It couldn’t be Two Face or the Penguin who broke out of Arkham. No, it’s got to be the guy hell-bent on tracking you down.”
“I don’t think this one is about me,” Jason says after a moment. “I think I’m the gravy.” He shifts slightly and doesn’t grimace outright, but the skin around his eyes tightens and it’s as telling as a scream would have been. “He’s looking for Daddy Bat, which means you’re the bait, not me.”
Tim holds the bandage in place and nods slightly. He’s figured that much out on his own.
“Soon,” Tim promises, wondering if he’s lying even as he says it. “He’ll be here soon.”
-0-
“Sometimes I miss the Cave,” Jason says as he pokes at Tim’s knee. Tim grits his teeth as Jason does it again, gentler this time, and frowns. “Alfred is better at this shit than I ever was.”
“It’s just twisted,” Tim says as Jason runs his fingers around to the back of Tim’s knee. “It’s going to swell and hurt and I’ll have to stay off it for a few days. No big deal.”
“Bullshit,” Jason says serenely, and it’s then that Tim realizes that Jason has his knee in both hands and his own legs braced against the floor. “Deep breath, baby bird.”
Tim opens his mouth to protest but Jason pulls, and there’s a moment of white-hot pain before his knee clicks into place. Tim throws an arm across his face and focuses on breathing, in and out on a count of seven, even and strong. When Tim drops his arm and opens his eyes again, Jason is still kneeling by his side, looking intently down at him.
“See, there’s another reason to wish we were at the Cave,” Jason says, as if the break in the conversation to reset Tim’s knee hadn’t happened. “Ice packs and painkillers. And Alfred’s willingness to make a tray of whichever cookies you think might make you feel better.”
He’s helping Tim sit up as he talks, and by the time he’s done, both he and Tim are propped against the wall. Tim nods as he finishes. “Chocolate chip,” he offers after a few seconds of silence.
Jason shifts. “What?”
“Chocolate chip cookies,” Tim repeats. “That’s what I always ask Alfred for.”
“Huh,” Jason says, looking away again. “Me too.”
-0-
“Okay,” Tim whispers as he bends over Jason’s arm, pulling at the ends of the bandage he’d made out of his own shirt, “okay, enough waiting.”
Jason nods, a jerky up-down of his chin. “Got a plan, Boy Wonder?”
Tim smiles grimly. “You’re not going to like it at all.”
Jason stares at him for a moment before making a show out of looking around their cell and down at his not-quite-bleeding stomach and his definitely-bleeding arm. “I’m pretty sure it beats staying here for much longer.”
“Only maybe,” Tim says, then sits back and outlines his plan.
-0-
“I’m going to say this once and once only,” Jason gasps as they slump against the wall of a warehouse down the street from the one they’d escaped “You were absolutely right. I didn’t like that at all.”
Tim leans back, tilts his head to the sky, and laughs.
This was originally posted at http://somehowunbroken.dreamwidth.org/185131.html, where it has
comments. Comment here or there.
Author: somehowunbroken
Beta: shinysylver
Fandom: DCU
Characters: Tim Drake, Jason Todd
Word Count: 1,670
Rating: R/swearing and some mostly not graphic violence
Notes: For camshaft22, because she is, in fact, awesome, and she understands my feeeeelings about the Robins. Written for hc_bingo's February postage stamp challenge, using the prompts forced to rely on enemy/rival, captivity, homesickness, and abandonment issues. Title from "Barricade" by Stars.
Summary: “This is not good,” Tim mutters, looking around the small cell again. “Seriously, this isn’t good at all.”
“This is not good,” Tim mutters, looking around the small cell again. “Seriously, this isn’t good at all.”
“Gee, you don’t say,” Jason replies, voice full of sarcastic surprise. He’s lying near the wall of the cell, hands folded behind his head, feet planted on the floor. He looks for all the world like he’s just relaxing, if you discount the way that he seems poised to flip up onto his feet at a moment’s notice. “Got any ideas, baby bird?”
Tim narrows his eyes at the door, considering. “If they hadn’t taken my belt-”
“Or my knives, or my gun, or my jacket,” Jason cuts in, rolling his eyes. “If they’d left us our shit, we’d be out of here already, which proves that they’re smarter than your average bear.”
“Your jacket?” Tim repeats. “Do I even want to know how that would get us out of here?”
Jason shrugs. “Lock picks sewn into the seam.”
“Of course there are,” Tim mutters. He’s already checked the small compartment in the bottom of his boot. His picks are gone. “I’ve got nothing at the moment. You?”
Jason shrugs against the floor, making his shirt ride up an inch or two. “Working on it. I’ll let you know.”
“You do that,” Tim says, leaning back against the wall and scanning the cell yet again.
-0-
“Well, this sucks,” Jason says as the door slams shut. He’s bleeding, Tim notices, but he’s still on his feet, so their captors hadn’t hurt him too badly.
Or they had and Jason is covering well, or he’s hurt internally, or-
“Whatever you’re thinking, stop it,” Jason orders, walking back to his spot near the wall and sitting down slowly. He’s got a hand pressed just under his ribs on his left side, and the blood is soaking out from underneath it. “It’s a scratch. It’ll heal.”
“Let me see,” Tim says, kneeling down beside Jason and reaching for the hem of his shirt. Jason grabs Tim’s hand with a glare.
“It’ll heal,” he repeats, squeezing Tim’s hand warningly. “Hands off. Unless you want to waste some time the interesting way,” Jason adds with a smirk.
Tim sits back on his heels. “We just have to wait until B figures out where we are,” he says, ignoring Jason’s leer with an ease born of practice. “There are trackers in your things and in mine. It’s just a matter of time until he shows up and gets us out of here.”
“Cold warehouse, psychopaths trying to beat me up, creepy clown voices,” Jason says thoughtfully. “Last time I was in this situation, it didn’t end so well for me.”
Tim’s stomach turns cold. “You heard the Joker?”
Jason shrugs. “To be honest, baby bird, I have no fucking idea.” He drops Tim’s hand and reaches up to tap his own forehead. “I tend to think he’s after me a lot of the time, and our charming accommodations are kind of bringing back a lot of shit that I hoped I wouldn’t have to live through again.”
Tim lays his hand on the floor before clenching it into a fist. “We just have to wait,” he repeats. “A few more hours, that’s all.”
Jason closes his eyes. “Whatever helps you get through this.”
-0-
The good thing about being dragged out of the cell, Tim thinks, is that he can tell Jason that he’s no crazier than usual when he gets back. The Joker is, indeed, present and accounted for, doing his usual song and dance routine while smacking Tim around. Tim counts the ribs he thinks are broken and the ones that are probably just bruised as the Joker alternates between cackling, aiming kicks at Tim’s midsection, and spouting rhetoric. Tim estimates that he’s out of the cell for less than half an hour before he’s dragged back down the hallway and shoved inside.
“Fuckers,” Jason spits as Tim stumbles into the wall. He manages to catch himself and use the wall to help him slump to the ground. “What’s the damage?”
“Three broken ribs, a few more cracked, and massive bruising,” Tim rattles off. “Also a headache, but that’s probably due more to listening to the Joker talk about world domination than any potential concussions.”
Jason’s hands go still by his sides. “So I did hear him.”
“You did,” Tim agrees. “I guess that’s our upside and downside all at the same time.”
“There’s an upside to it being the Joker?” Jason asks as he carefully crouches down and reaches for Tim’s shirt. Tim bats his hands away, but Jason rolls his eyes and yanks Tim’s shirt up anyway.
“You’re not imagining it,” Tim says. “Means you’re still capable of helping to get us out of here.”
Jason narrows his eyes at the purple that’s already blooming across Tim’s ribs. “Small mercies there.”
“At least I won’t have to drag you out,” Tim says, deliberately light. “Satisfied that I’m not bleeding out?”
Jason snorts and pulls Tim’s shirt back into place. “Just making sure. Can’t blame a guy.”
Tim eyes the hem of Jason’s shirt, then raises an eyebrow. Jason just grins.
-0-
“It shouldn’t be long,” Tim says, ignoring Jason’s attempt to shove him away by putting more pressure against the rag of Jason’s shirt, now balled up and held against his side. Jason hisses out a breath and leans back against the wall. He’s sweating, and Tim knows it’s not due to the temperature. Tim tries not to think about how long the Joker had had Jason out of the cell this time, and the damage he’d been able to inflict. “Hey, do me a favor, will you? Don’t catch some sort of infection.”
“Doing my best,” Jason says shortly, focusing on a spot somewhere over Tim’s shoulder. “Not making any promises, baby bird.”
“Why isn’t he slicing me up?” Tim asks, pulling the shirt away and checking on the wound. It’s long, curving from Jason’s navel to the bottom of his ribcage. It’s deep enough to be painful and cause a lot of slow blood loss, but shallow enough that it’s not going to kill Jason outright any time soon. Tim frowns and presses the makeshift bandage back into place.
“Jealous?” Jason grins. It’s ghoulish, the way he’s able to smile almost like he means it while bleeding and trembling. “I’m sure if you ask real nice he’ll give you a scar to match this one.”
Tim shakes his head. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
“He’s got a thing for me,” Jason offers. “I’m not just saying that, either. I’m the one he beat bloody and blew to kingdom come, and I didn’t have the good sense to stay there, so he’s got a special kind of hate-on for me.”
“Fantastic,” Tim mutters. “It couldn’t be Two Face or the Penguin who broke out of Arkham. No, it’s got to be the guy hell-bent on tracking you down.”
“I don’t think this one is about me,” Jason says after a moment. “I think I’m the gravy.” He shifts slightly and doesn’t grimace outright, but the skin around his eyes tightens and it’s as telling as a scream would have been. “He’s looking for Daddy Bat, which means you’re the bait, not me.”
Tim holds the bandage in place and nods slightly. He’s figured that much out on his own.
“Soon,” Tim promises, wondering if he’s lying even as he says it. “He’ll be here soon.”
-0-
“Sometimes I miss the Cave,” Jason says as he pokes at Tim’s knee. Tim grits his teeth as Jason does it again, gentler this time, and frowns. “Alfred is better at this shit than I ever was.”
“It’s just twisted,” Tim says as Jason runs his fingers around to the back of Tim’s knee. “It’s going to swell and hurt and I’ll have to stay off it for a few days. No big deal.”
“Bullshit,” Jason says serenely, and it’s then that Tim realizes that Jason has his knee in both hands and his own legs braced against the floor. “Deep breath, baby bird.”
Tim opens his mouth to protest but Jason pulls, and there’s a moment of white-hot pain before his knee clicks into place. Tim throws an arm across his face and focuses on breathing, in and out on a count of seven, even and strong. When Tim drops his arm and opens his eyes again, Jason is still kneeling by his side, looking intently down at him.
“See, there’s another reason to wish we were at the Cave,” Jason says, as if the break in the conversation to reset Tim’s knee hadn’t happened. “Ice packs and painkillers. And Alfred’s willingness to make a tray of whichever cookies you think might make you feel better.”
He’s helping Tim sit up as he talks, and by the time he’s done, both he and Tim are propped against the wall. Tim nods as he finishes. “Chocolate chip,” he offers after a few seconds of silence.
Jason shifts. “What?”
“Chocolate chip cookies,” Tim repeats. “That’s what I always ask Alfred for.”
“Huh,” Jason says, looking away again. “Me too.”
-0-
“Okay,” Tim whispers as he bends over Jason’s arm, pulling at the ends of the bandage he’d made out of his own shirt, “okay, enough waiting.”
Jason nods, a jerky up-down of his chin. “Got a plan, Boy Wonder?”
Tim smiles grimly. “You’re not going to like it at all.”
Jason stares at him for a moment before making a show out of looking around their cell and down at his not-quite-bleeding stomach and his definitely-bleeding arm. “I’m pretty sure it beats staying here for much longer.”
“Only maybe,” Tim says, then sits back and outlines his plan.
-0-
“I’m going to say this once and once only,” Jason gasps as they slump against the wall of a warehouse down the street from the one they’d escaped “You were absolutely right. I didn’t like that at all.”
Tim leans back, tilts his head to the sky, and laughs.
This was originally posted at http://somehowunbroken.dreamwidth.org/185131.html, where it has
comments. Comment here or there.