So. So. *Steeples fingers* this may or may not be the fic for you. Yet another combination prompt because the people on the Capes and Coffee Discord are fucking enablers. You know who you are.
Warnings for: captivity, blood-letting, missing-in-time Bruce
The hidden bunker is outside the city limits of Gotham, a perfect place to stay off the grid.
Officer Grayson makes the drive with the radio on WKKG, All Gotham, All the Time. He moves his head to the beat of the pop song blaring over the line.
The outside of the abandoned gas station looks positively deserted and if they were any more rural, tumble weeds would be rolling around the decrepit gas pumps.
Officer Grayson parks around the back of the building out of sight and grabs the paper bags from the passenger side, holds his cup of coffee in the same hand, whistles to himself as he gets out of the police cruiser.
A complex locking system on a seemingly outdated walk-in freezer opens up to an elevator that is decidedly the newest fixture in the place.
He hums the chorus of the pop song from the radio on the way down, small smile on his face reflecting back at him from the mirrored doors.
The underground is a completely different world.
Apparently constructed to be a bunker, the basement is lead-lined and spacious with all processes set-up to stay off the grid, perfect for his needs. He has a separate power supply, a separate HVAC system, a security system with nearly imperceptible cameras to make sure no one, no one gets close enough to the property without alerting him immediately.
And he certainly doesn’t want anyone finding his personal mission here.
Officer Grayson puts one of the grocery bags down on a table littered with notebooks and read-outs he’d left the last time after he’d gotten samples. He sips on his coffee as he walks around the first room, lit only by the emergency lights at the top of the low-slung ceiling, and turns on the power, turns on the lights in the rest of the bunker.
The beeps behind him are the locks resetting on the elevator, the only way out.
Dick is still humming when he passes into the next room, blocked on either end with thick, metal doors complete with a complex locking mechanism and impressive alarm system. The many tables in this room are filled with laboratory equipment, a biotechnician’s playground.
Half-completed analyses are still running on the impressive screens mounted overhead, status bar at 68%.
Five-gallon buckets under the tables with black Sharpie denote chemical names with dates scribbled hastily below.
Dick sips his coffee as he looks up at the running totals, makes mental notes, compares previous tests and results.
It’s discouraging, but Dick just sighs to himself. Of all vigilantes in Gotham, he’s the optimist, and he knows that each failure will just bring him closer and closer to success. He just can’t give up.
Bruce is counting on them.
With his coffee and bag in one hand, he lets the analysis churn, and enters his code in the next door, then places a palm print on the pad outside. Leans down so his eye scan can be completed.
Unlike the other rooms, the lights come on the second the door fully unlocks and opens to allow Dick entrance.
The reason for that is to turn on the intense sun lamps to further weaken the figure strapped down to the gurney in the center of the room, strategically lessening the possibility of an attack.
Dick puts the bag and his coffee down on the only table in the room.
“Sorry I didn’t come yesterday. Rupert Thorne had a big shipment planned and we were up late tracking it,” his voice is light and cheery, his smile wide and white. He comes to the side of the gurney, takes note of the slight burning smell that always seems to permeate the room no matter how much he tries to avoid it by making sure there’s always something between skin and pure silver. Struggling dislodges whatever he uses, so the result is the smell of burning flesh.
He clicks his tongue in disappointment, looking down at Timmy’s closed eyes and painfully pale face.
His frown deepens when Tim Drake rolls his head over to face the wall instead.
Silver chains wrap his arms, legs, neck, and torso, rendering him utterly immobile. Holy relics hang over the gurney as an added safety measure. He’s completely naked under a flimsy sheet.
“Aren’t you going to say hello?” He asks softly. “I’m letting Alfred pick up Dami so I can spend some extra time with you today.”
IVs are grotesquely hooked into each major artery, set on slow drain. The multiple blood bags hooked under the gurney show the slow trickle as the bags fill to a crawl.
Tim’s violet-blue eyes crack open a sliver, but he doesn’t look away from the wall, away from freedom.
“That isn’t very nice,” Dick’s tone stays soft, yet firm. “You know what I’m trying to do here.”
The sound of Tim trying to swallow is heard over the soft mechanical beeping, the hum of working equipment. “You know how important you are to this, Timmy. I don’t like how you keep refusing to be a team player.” Dick pauses just a moment, eyes narrow, “is this still about Damian being Robin now? Because you know how many times we’ve been over this.”
Tim closes his eyes again, a muscle in his jaw jumps.
“Well, I think you’ve been sulking about it long enough,” Dick brusquely throws the sheet out of the way to show IVs, burns, and the network of complicated blood vessels below deathly pale skin. “You knew even before you went to Iraq my choices were the best for everyone, not just you.”
Dick checks all the leads, makes sure the drip is slow. He doesn’t so much as lift up the solid silver chains and nudge them with the cloth he keeps underneath, the point of it is to try and keep Tim’s skin from burning, temporarily cauterizing his veins and killing the supply. The last time the chains were displaced this much, Dick had made the mistake of lifting one, giving Tim enough power to bare his fangs and lunge. Since then, the chains have stayed put, only shuffled around a little.
“And if you would have just listened to me and stayed in Gotham, you wouldn’t have been caught by vampires in the first place. You know that, don’t you? If you would have worked with us at home, Ra’s would have never taken that much of an interest and led them right to you. Heck, you might still be alive and have your spleen.”
Shaking his head in frustration at all the events from last year when Bruce’s body was brought back, when the Battle for the Cowl had forced him to raise his hand against Jason again and break his heart over Little Wing again, when he knew Tim didn’t need any more mentorship, didn’t need the support and encouragement Damian did after losing their father, and the ultimate decision to let Tim decide his own future after Robin, when seeing Tim six months after his disappearance as a vampire in a cape, all of it had made the choice on how to handle this situation.
How to fix everything that had gone so horribly wrong.
Do what he had to do, try disseminating the secrets of immortality so they could bring Bruce back.
And like this, Tim is going to help him do it.
“But it’s okay,” he’s back to smiling again, “we’ve worked past all that, haven’t we, Timmy?” Dick is satisfied all the leads are fine and the slow flow unimpeded. He steps back to the bag on the table.
In one hand is a pint of O Positive. In the other, a Krispy Kreme with sprinkles.
Both their favorites.
“C’mon,” he cajoles after taking a bite of his donut, “it’s one of Steph’s extra pints. I know you’re going to like it.”
He holds the oozing bag to Tim’s averted mouth and patiently waits, nibbles on his donut in the other hand.
“Why don’t,” and the tone is hoarse, faint because Timmy mostly doesn’t really talk to him anymore, “you just kill me?”
Dick pauses mid-chew, blinking down at the eyes filling with bloody tears, the hitch in the chest that doesn’t really move anymore.
Dick swallows the bite, suddenly more like ash than icing in his mouth. “You know I can’t do that,” is more harsh than he means. “We don’t kill. Not even vampires.”
“Then let me go.”
“Can’t let you go out and kill people either, Tim, and I need the supply for testing.”
“This is torture. This is fucking torture and you don’t even give a shit about me anymore–”
With a flick of his fingers, a crucifix falls right on Tim’s chest, and the screams are awful, horrible, but that is probably never going to outweigh the smell.
By the time Dick finishes his donut, Tim is weakly writhing in agony and the screams have died down to soft whimpers, mouth open to show those killer fangs.
He dusts his hands off and pulls on a glove from the Nightwing suit under his uniform, gingerly lifts the holy item off, grimaces when tissue and flesh stick to it.
Dick scoffs and takes the chance to lean down, presses his mouth to Tim’s forehead. “You know I can’t lose anyone else,” is the softest of reprimands. “Don’t worry. Once I just figure this out, we’ll get Bruce back and he’ll help us reverse the turning. Before you know it, this will seem like just a bad dream.”
Dick presses another kiss to each eyelid, talking softly against the deceptively soft yet immortal skin. “And when you’re back to yourself, we can be together again. I’ll take care of you just like I used to, promise.”
Dick leans back up with a small smile on his face and familiar fondness in his eyes. He holds the bag up to Tim’s mouth again, ignores the red tears streaming down the pale face. “We’ll get there, okay? I’m close to the answers we need. I just need a little more time. But, I have to have samples to work with, which means you to drink, Timmy.”
Like usual, the pink tracks down his face stand out starkly in the false sunlight when Tim finally gives in and punctures the bag with his fangs.
jojoeatsflan replied to your post: Why are you proud about being a poor writer? I...
The best fucking drag ive seen in a long time holy shit
Well, I wanted to see if their criticisms had any merit. Which, is both does and doesn’t. I always think my writing is poor, but my readers don’t, so while I have no basis to judge that, I have to say it’s either bs or a matter of opinion. But if they think it’s poor because Saitama isn’t Saitama, they either misunderstand the point of AUs or they went in expecting something else.
I don’t think it’s true that there is no Saitama in my Salvaged Saitama. He’s there, but he’s changed according to the altered world. The most egregious change imo is that I gave him social anxiety, which I don’t at all believe he has canonically, and that I made the story much more focused on mental health issues, with open discussion about it.
Anon can't criticize either of those things, because they didn't even read that far, but even if they did - so what? This story is mine. Fanfiction always alters canon, to seek resolutions that canon may never provide (usually romantic in nature), to have personal catharsis (depression fics, death fics, angsty romance fics, hurt/comfort fics). You could point at almost any fanfic and be able to say, "They are out of character, this might as well be an OC." Finding a fic where they are hardcore in character is really freaking rare. Every single fic where Genos and Saitama fall in love, tell each other how much they mean to each other, hold hands, etc? Out of character. But that's the fucking point. If all fanfics stayed 100% true to character, you might as well just read the canon, because barely anything would be able to change.
We are the products of our upbringing, our environment, our genetic predispositions, brain chemistry, etc. If you alter the world around a character, it's not a stretch to assume that it will alter how that character behaves. Fanfic authors create situations that affect the characters, and thereby change their usual characterization. Even fics that are the most faithful to canon and most in-character, must use events and slight changes in thoughts and actions to achieve the end goal (which is usually, Saitama and Genos in a romantic/sexual relationship). Once you get to that point, it's OOC compared to canon, but it makes sense why that change happened. AUs vary from slight changes, to lots of wild changes, including changes with personality, and you either accept the premise or you don’t.
There was a time when I wrote 200 words a day, every day.There were musings, drunk rants, sleepy stories, and even a few quality pieces that jumped out and slapped me, once I read back through them.
There were also oceans of text that meant…nothing.There were just little soldiers in a row holding up an idea that being a writer was about putting as much ink onto the page, or text into a Word…
