as promised, here's 1000 words of Incident Report #8 (aka, the series where Tim and Fright Knight adopt each other)
The byline for this one is "Naked and Afraid: Red Robin Edition
Tim is naked, the goons are afraid"
“I can’t even get a signal on a tracker, he must not have had one on him when he was taken,” Oracle confirms. Even with the voice modulation, Dick can hear the tight worry in her tone. He feels that same concern tying his shoulders into knots.
Damian stomps around the apartment, careless if anyone hears them. Obviously, he’s begging for a fight or some sort of action, anything as an outlet. Concern has never been an emotion Damian’s processed in healthy ways. Poor kid, Dick thinks, because he can’t help worrying after everyone.
Dick follows logic path after logic path, all the while flipping the Gate Pendant over and over and over in his hand. Start from the top, he orders his scattered thoughts.
Evidence, Tim has been kidnapped after a struggle. Evidence, Oracle can’t track him. Evidence, the Gate Pendant was left behind. Conclusion, Tim got nabbed unawares and the fight started in the bathroom.
Oh God, did they ambush him in the shower? Poor kid, Dick enthuses again.
Fact, they have no lead. No note, no motivation, no demand for ransom. Bruce is probably wearing a hole in the Cave’s floor with his pacing under Alfred’s stern gaze while they wait for contact from the kidnappers. If there will even be… Dick's mind keeps circling back to the worst case scenario.
Fact, Dick has a possible solution in his hand. He flips the Gate Pendant over again.
Option One, they go on a wild chase through Gotham, Oracle scrambles every single traffic cam and CCTV she can hack for some hint of a clue or a sign of where Tim might have been taken. A clock ticks down in Dick’s mind’s eye.
He can’t help but think about the stats, the murder rates for abductees after twenty four hours. There’s a deadline on Tim’s survival chances. Not even accounting for possible injuries or rogue involvement. Assuming he can’t defend himself, taken without any gear and possibly hesitant to make Tim Drake, tech-bro businessman, a little too capable. And all evidence available confirms some level of competency of the perpetrators.
It reminds him so strongly of another brother – Dick not even planet-side, a funeral he never knew about.
Whatever it takes, Dick isn’t going to let anything happen to Tim.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
"Wait!" the goon cries. Her hands are up, cowering half behind her forearms where Tim's posed to crash the butt of the rifle into her face. "Wait, wait, wait, please, I don't have health insurance."
He pauses. "Talk fast."
Look, Tim might be pissed off. He's naked. He's cold. His feet are sticky and he thinks he's going to need a Hep C vaccine. But he's not an asshole.
Well. He is an asshole. He's not an unreasonable asshole.
"Look, we didn't know, ok?" she pleads, peeking from behind her arms still protecting her face. "We took the job through the union. None of us knew it was to kidnap Tim Drake. If I'd known who we were kidnapping, I wouldn't have accepted the job."
Tim squints. Huh.
Interesting.
Relaxing a hair but keeping the rifle ready to wallop the goon in case she gets any bright ideas, he demands, "Tell me everything."
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
Getting the gloves off the Nightwing suit is a pain. Of course it is, it’s meant to be, what with the clasps and security measures. All protective, but now a hindrance as Dick fights the damn thing off.
Damian watches on, swinging between annoyed and bemused. The little shit, notably, does not offer to help. Instead, he smirks as Dick growls once just before he finally gets the damn thing off.
It’s probably a stupid plan, foolhardy. Reason tells Dick to slow down, logic dictates him to report back to Bruce with their findings. Anxiety and fear demand otherwise. Not that Robin says anything. Dick only needed to meet the lens of his mask for a heartbeat before he nodded in obvious support of Dick’s unspoken thoughts.
If memory serves, Fright Knight answers the Gate Pendant by his own volition. All he needs is a ‘sufficient’ sacrifice. Sacrifice being blood.
He doesn’t stop to worry if his blood will be sufficient. Fright Knight always answers, he knows. The question remains if that’s due to his own prerogative, or the specific offering. Specific being Tim’s blood.
Dick’s never going to understand the strange bond between his little brother and the ghost. Frankly, he isn’t sure he wants to.
All he needs is for Fright Knight to answer.
The honed edge of the Wing Ding is more than sharp enough. He doesn't think twice as he presses the edge of it into the meat of his left palm. For a moment, the skin there splits open but, almost as if in shock, forgets to bleed.
Then it wells up, a steady flow that thickens in just seconds. Dick grabs the Gate Pendant and grips it tight in his hand, setting his mind against the pain of it.
He stares hard at the clench of his fingers, focusing on the points where the pendant digs into his hand.
Dick isn't a praying man. But he finds himself sending out a plea heavenward.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
The thing, Tim considers, is that this is bullshit.
Like, he isn't sure what the plan was. But, Tim imagines, there probably wasn't much of one to begin with? Vibes based planning? There's always this point where Tim Drake-Wayne, Co-CEO and skater boy of the board room, gets egregiously underestimated.
You know, nothing to say for his public persona. But it isn't like Tim's gone out of his way to make himself look like a goofball. Not in the ways that Bruce has. So, surely there's some sort of ageism involved and that's why this has happened.
"Run that by me again?" Tim asks, lifting one foot to scratch his other ankle.
Lex Luthor looks somewhere between annoyed and surprised. Inconvenienced to see Tim in the run down lobby of the abandoned movie theater, oversized t-shirt hitting him about mid thigh, but still shoeless and sticky footed.
He's scrounged up a shirt, malingering stock of movie merch that never sold and was sent to a back room to be forever forgotten about. Lucky for Tim, it's only a tiny bit musty and not at all moth eaten, thanks to the plastic zip it was in. Also, lucky because now he's at least not entirely buck-ass naked.
Just kind of naked.
Doing a Pooh Bear, one might say.
If Pooh Bear wore a shirt from an action movie Tim never even remembered seeing trailers for.
"I paid good money for those goons," Lex Luthor complains. "They came highly rated from the union."
Tim shrugs, feeling a bit belligerent. Thanks to Nancy the Narc (formerly known as Goon Number Five), Tim knew the beneficiary of this kidnapping ploy. Color him surprise (no, don't) that Lex Luthor was behind it.
Oh no, Lex Luthor doing the most derivative Evil Villain Plot? Who ever could have seen it coming!
Gonna make a post here just in case anyone’s interested:
Hi! I’m Bella and I started Vtubing last year.
I’ve been doing art for many years and taught myself to rig on Live2D a couple years ago. I recently finishes this commission and thought i’d share my work in case anyone’s been looking for a reliable source for a new Vtuber model!
You can DM me here or you can find me on twitch and instagram as well :)
Reblogs are appreciated to help an artist get some work! ❤️
