jinmukangwrites

[jinmukangwrites]

once again because not only are all my fics on AO3 locked, but now AO3 has temporarily removed the ability to leave comments while being a guest, most of my fics are here on tumblr, and if you can't find them you can always shoot me an ask, anon or not, requesting a download link to the fic and I will provide. Its tragic that spam and ai bots have made being anonymous on AO3 unbearable for both the readers and the authors, but alas.

As of now I have no plans to make any of my fics unlocked, but I will continue to upload any future fics onto Tumblr for any anon reading and for those who don't have Ao3 accounts for as long as Tumblr still stands. I apologize for my master post not being completely updated for fics written in the past, but I'm hopeful I'll keep on it for any future postings. At the very least, all my fics have fandom and character tags, as well as the "#jin writes" tag, so if something isn't in the master post, it doesn't hurt to try searching my blog by my tags. However I do know that I went through a phase with my DC fics where I'd post the first couple hundred words then leave a "read the rest on AO3" comment at the bottom. I'd like to go back and edit those some time.

Anyways thanks to everyone who continues to support my writing! I know I'm a slow and inconsistent writer now, but real life comes first for now, I have no plans to ever stop writing completely, all I ask is for continued patience, both in my writing and for making sure everyone can read my fics on AO3 (with an account) and on Tumblr (anonymous/without an AO3 account)

#jin updates

[jinmukangwrites]

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, current AO3 .pdf download link to make up for not having 3-5 on Tumblr <3

Mystery Upstairs - Chapter 7

Fandom: Spider-Man (MCU), Marvel, Daredevil

Rating: G

Warnings: mentions of panic attacks, mild cop violence, canon typical violence, Matt taking the Lord's name in vain, the author not knowing if taking the Lord's name in vain is something Catholics worry about, the author not knowing every detail on how the legal system works and will tell you to blame Foggy on getting anything wrong and not the author themself.

Ao3

Summary: Peter needed a place to stay after the universe forgot about him. Luckily, there's a complex in Hell's Kitchen that won't ask questions. It's only chance that Peter recognizes the face of the Lawyer upstairs.

Meanwhile, Matt cannot help himself from checking in on his new, young neighbor who couldn't be old enough to be out of highschool

----

"I think I don't know is becoming one of my least favorite things to hear, ever," Foggy said after a full 15 seconds of silence. Funnily enough, Foggy wasn't lying.

Matt had just finished explaining the basics of the whole Peter situation, telling most of the information that he knew—leaving out specifically that Peter had somehow reacted to May Parker's name, that wasn't something he couldn't give anything more than speculation on... speculation that also had a lot of I don't know's that would just make Foggy more angry with Matt. 

Foggy, previously happy to see the conversation had switched to something he potentially had more opportunity to involve himself in—legal involvement was his favorite kind of involvement—had unfortunately started asking questions that mattered.

Where did Peter come from? Who were his parents? Why was he on his own? How old was he? Matt please tell me you at least know his last name. Ok, does anyone else find it weird his last name is Parker? That's a little weird right? Yes I know May Parker didn't have any living relatives but come on it's a little weird right? Matt you have that look on your face that you agree it's a little weird. What do you mean drop it?!

Matt sighed, and Foggy dropped it, though Karen's tense posture certainly suggested she hadn't, which was in character. He'd let her do her thing, her job was to snoop, he needed Foggy to focus on the legal things.

"Listen," Foggy continued, "people lose legal documents all the time. House fires, robbery, carelessness, runaways. Everything can be replaced with fee's and various proof of other kinds of identification — but what I'm hearing is that this kid has nothing and that's infinitely more difficult. The Blip made getting identification without proof of citizenship easier, yeah, but it's still difficult. How does he even have a place to stay?"

"He's paying in cash," Matt replied, thoughtfully. "Enough cash that any greedy landlord would happily brush some rules under the rug for."

"Drop the greedy adjective," Foggy waved his hand, "that's all landlords."

"Point stands."

"How'd he even get that cash?" Karen asked, intrigue lacing her breath. "If he doesn't have a job, let alone a way to legally be hired for a job..."

"Probably stole it from his parents," Foggy suggested. "Or robbed a bank. Or he had a job, lost it, got everything liquidized before booking it here to his current situation."

"That's a lot of allegations," Matt sighed, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms across his chest—eyebrows lowered so they brushed against his glasses. "There has to be a way to help him out. People show up out of nowhere all the time."

"We've helped people get their lives back before, the Blip gave us plenty of work," Karen said.

Foggy reminded her before Matt could, rubbing his chin and pacing slightly. "So many people needed their identities back that it was easy to help them. All you had to do really was say you're a lawyer and your client needs a social security card pretty please and the government would give you it just so they could get to the millions of other requests."

Foggy knew more about this line of legal work than Matt did. Foggy liked to help everyone, while Matt usually buried his head into the ones deemed unhelpable.

"The processes for the Blip still exist, I thought?" Matt didn't mean to make it sound like a question. Or well, it sounded like a question to himself, the rise of his voice was just barely caught, for his ears alone. "It hasn't been that long."

"Yes, but long enough they're getting strict again with the process. Plenty of people have jumped onto the opportunity to get documents that they legally shouldn't have. Power to them, really, but it's made it so they'll need more proof — testaments of friends and family, good lawyers, dental records, anything they can get their hands on to prove that you one: was a legal citizen pre-Blip, and two: proof that you blipped at all. Did he Blip?"

"I don't know." Foggy rolled his eyes. "I'm sure the process could be easier with the right lawyers, regardless," Matt suggested.

Foggy sighed, catching the hint. The sigh alone answered the unasked question on whether or not Foggy would help Matt with this. "Just tell me why you want to help so bad, and then I'll get on more research."

Matt smiled. "He's... interesting. Everything about him is a question. Besides, he's a good kid. I'd hate to sit back and watch him fall into homelessness just because of a few missing IDs."

That, and the fact that there were irresistible puzzles to the kid that he didn't mention because of the aforementioned speculation. What did Peter go out and do at night? Why had he reacted so strongly to Matt's phone call with Karen?

"Alright," Foggy said, resigned. "I'll get on it. Just promise me this isn't going to lead us down a huge rabbit hole of the kind of shit you deal with."

Karen scoffed. "Don't make him promise anything he can't keep."

The mood lightened with the semblance of a plan. The three of them settled in to discuss the next steps. Karen would continue to dig into May Parker, Foggy would look into getting IDs for a kid that didn't governmentally exist, and Matt would return home to a fixed embosser and win the looming lawsuit.

-o0o-

Peter blinked as the scream of sirens outside pulled him out from his deep concentration.

Ambulance sirens, two cops, a firetruck...

He shook his head and leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms above his head with a yawn. The time on the oven read nearly midnight and the embosser on his table was just a few screws left of being repaired.

Or, temporarily repaired. Repaired enough to print Mr Murdock's notes and give Peter time to scramble for something to replace the bit's that'll inevitably break again the next time Mr Murdock needed things printed.

The sirens traveled away from him, angry and wailing. They were traveling deeper into Hell's Kitchen, and he desperately scolded himself before his curiosity could even bubble up and wonder where they were going.

Unfortunately, pushing down that curiosity just made him remember the sounds of the sirens that followed May's death...

Maybe he should take a break. Get out of Hell's Kitchen and punch some bad guys. He could tell Mr Murdock he stopped working on the embosser to sleep, so he didn't need to worry about getting paid more than what he could stomach.

The decision was easily made. He noted the time, determined to not get paid for this hour, then scrambled for the suit that he'd stuffed inside his bag.

-o0o-

The fact that it felt good to deck someone across the face probably should have worried Peter, but he felt too good to think about it.

This was doing something. Peter Parker found himself inexplicably erased, trapped in an ocean of isolation, drowning in lies that he couldn't even begin to tell the truth about. But Spider-Man? That guy didn't have to worry about that. That guy could make a difference—a memorable difference—every night. Every victim he helped.

It was a run-of-the-mill theft. Some old man had decided nighttime was the perfect time for a stroll, and some younger spry had thought it was the perfect opportunity to get himself a few extra dollars. The thief had been aggressive, not gun aggressive, knife aggressive, and Spider-Man couldn't have that.

"Woah, dude, watch where you're stabbing that thing, could take an eye out!"

A duck-and-weave around the swinging knife was all it took for Peter to close in. The tense of his arm was familiar, and the impact of his fist was true. He wasn't the best trained at knife-to-hand combat, but most of his problems could just be solved by being really hard to hit combined with the fact he had a bit more strength to use than everyone else.

The thief cried out, crashing back onto his backside and unwittingly throwing his knife to the side in favor of grabbing his smarting jaw.

Something, somewhere deep down, was disappointed that the fight wouldn't last more than a single duck-weave-punch, though the majority of Peter felt pleased with himself. He webbed up the jerk, grabbed the snatched wallet, then returned it to the grateful old man with a smile that creased the eye lenses of his mask.

"Thank you so much," the old man said, shaking Peter's hand. "You're that spider kid, aren't you?"

"Spider-Man," Peter corrected—that something somewhere wincing a bit.

Peter was erased. Spider-Man wasn't. Not all the way. People still knew Spider-Man. J. Jonah Jameson still ranted about him on the news. People recognized the colors he wore, and people tended to thank him by his superhero name.

The only thing about Spider-Man that got torn up by the fabric of the universe was Peter. Anyone who had known him as both identities no longer did, every interaction with Peter being replaced by unnameable recognition or a complete lack of memory in the first place. To what extent? Peter had no idea. He hadn't tried to seek anyone out who had known him as both, well, besides Mr Murdock, but that wasn't exactly on purpose. He also didn't count visiting MJ’s workplace that one time.

Besides, if Mr Murdock was anything to go by, anyone who worked with Spider-Man mask-off didn't remember a single conversation; wrapped up in a mystery of how they knew May Parker that they'll never get the answers to.

He wasn't going to try and see if MJ or Ned or Happy or Doctor Strange were any different.

Besides, he had no idea what would happen if he did regain a relationship with these people. Would the fabric of reality tear itself apart again? He'd love nothing more than to see Peter 2 and 3 again, but he couldn't risk their villains following them through again. What if they came for Peter 1 again? What if they went after his home, blew up the complex, and killed Mr Murdock in the process? What if they went after MJ? Ned? What if Doctor Strange couldn't fix it next time?

He squished that something somewhere further down, refusing to follow those thoughts deeper while he was literally shaking the hand of someone he'd just saved.

Feeling forcefully light and happy, Spider-Man swung through familiar neighborhoods, wishing just a little that he could take off the mask and feel the wind go through his hair. When he passed the busy streets, people pointed up and called out in excitement; when he passed over shady alleyways, shady people quickly split off. Sometimes, his presence was the only thing needed to discourage crime. It made him feel great, like Batman or something. Batman if he was cool and had a great sense of humor.

The night passed on, and almost nothing went wrong. No pooches were screwed. It was nearing sunrise and the semblance of rush hour had begun with the first few cars. He mentally planned the path back to his apartment. He almost got on that, until something shouted at him to stop.

He had already been stopped, mind you, standing awkwardly in a quiet alleyway looking at the street names because none of the buildings nearby were big enough to get a great enough view of the city. But his senses still went off, and someone authoritative commanded him to stop, and something clicked that sounded suspiciously like the safety on a pistol.

He swiveled his body around, frowning at the sight of the cop that stood at the other end of the alleyway, knees shaking and face twisted in confliction.

Uh. Okay? Peter wasn't exactly new to cops showing aggression to him. He had plenty pull their weapons on him at the beginning of his superhero career, and plenty more after Mysterio outed him and accused him of his murder.

But when he had joined the Avengers and fought Thanos... cops didn't do that. He was above their pay-grade, the FBI tended to want to deal with Spider-Man instead, but couldn't because of the mountains of paperwork they'd have to go through. The mountains of paperwork Mr Stark had made himself to make sure no national or international forces could get to him unless he committed an actual crime. Sure, yeah, the Mysterio stuff was an actual crime in their eyes and got Peter in alotta trouble, but after erasing his identity, everyone had gone back to not bothering him.

"Uh, you okay, officer?" He asked.

"Spider-Man," the cop said, a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead, and Peter frowned deeper as the cop didn't even really talk to him there. He had one hand on the pointed gun, the other at the walk-y at his jugular. "It's Spider-Man."

Peter took a step forward and the cop freaked. "Hands up! Get down on your knees! Y-You're under arrest."

The cop really didn't sound like he wanted to be saying those words.

"I'm sorry? What did I do?" Peter slowly got down on his knees, not quite willing to freak out the cop more yet but confident he could swing away if anything escalated as they often did with freaked out cops.

"We have a warrant for your arrest," the officer said, not approaching, he was afraid to. Peter stayed silent and still, the information hitting him in the gut.

But... but the police couldn't arrest him? They didn't have a reason to?

The cop returned to his walk-y, asking for backup, telling his location.

"What are the accusations?" Peter asked, fighting to keep his voice steady. "I'm protected, you have to have a reason."

"Orders from above," the cop said, "I don't know any more... I'm sorry. All the stations across the city have been ordered to take you in."

Well, at least the cop genuinely sounded sorry.

"Orders from who?"

"Some DODC agent," the cop said, his fingers trembling.

Alright.

He heard sirens in the distance and Peter made the quick decision that he should probably scatter; he really didn't fancy getting arrested to sate his curiosity.

He whipped his arm out, shooting with superhuman accuracy to knock the cop's gun out of his hand and stick it to a nearby wall. The man started shouting, hassling to pull out some other weapon, but Peter was already swinging away, his heart to his throat.

-o0o-

Peter's leg bounced as he sat at his kitchen table, staring at the TV as JJJ happily announced that Spider-Man had refused a warrant for his arrest just hours before, which was obvious proof of his criminal and dangerous behavior.

He was going on and on, clearly very happy with the development, and Peter would love nothing more than to turn off the TV and have a very big panic attack, but before JJJ started talking, they had announced that some agent was going to guest on the broadcast and explain more of the situation.

It took fifteen minutes for JJJ to invite the agent on, and when he did, Peter's eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

P. Cleary.

"Fu-"

-o0o-

"I can say for everybody that it's about damn time the DODC is taking actions against that masked menace."

"Spider-Man has been going under the radar for too long," the agent replied. Cleary. Jameson had introduced the agent a few minutes before. Matt wished he had some sort of visual description of the guy, he sounded like an asshole and he was willing to bet his nicest cane that he looked like one too. "While the Sokovia Accords have been repealed, order is still required when dealing with enhanced individuals. Spider-Man has been protected under the good will of Tony Stark, which at the time, was all the we needed to allow Spider-Man the freedom to remain anonymous in his work even after Stark's death. However, in light of recent incidents at the London Bridge as well as the Statue of Liberty, that protection has been called into question. After an investigation, we've found that the protection documents from Tony Stark granting Spider-man's right to be a vigilante as well as work with the Avengers have been... corrupted.

"Until we can meet with Spider-Man or a credible source that can vouch for him to redraft his order of protection, we regret to announce to the public that Spider-Man is to be considered dangerous, and should be avoided. His recent interaction with a local officer—attacking the officer and resisting arrest—proves that what we're doing is for the safety of the people."

"And why would you announce this great news on the Daily Fix?"

Cleary shifted. Forgive him Lord, but Christ on a cross this guy radiated smugness even through the television waves. It's a good thing Matt hadn't caught the attention of the DODC, people tended to look at louder vigilante's before they set their sights on Hell's Kitchen.

"To send Spider-Man a message before things get more messy for him. Spider-Man, turn yourself in, make this easy for everyone. We just want to get to the bottom of things, and the more you resist, the messier things will get—"

A voice message from Peter vibrated his phone, pulling his attention from his morning routine. Sure, listening to the news while drinking caffeine wasn't exactly the best routine for his anxiety, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do to keep sane. He navigated his phone to click play on the message, a frown working its way onto his lips.

"Hey Matt, it's Peter, uh, Parker, you gave me your number earlier? I'm just letting you know I finished your embosser and I can give it back whenever. Just so you know I only worked on it for, like, five hours—hah—but you really don't have to pay me or anything. It's okay, like seriously. Anyways just let me know when you're free, or pop by whenever, or, uhm, whatever. Thanks, kay, bye. Yeah."

Well that would have lifted his spirits if Peter didn't sound like he was trying not to cry that entire message. Faintly, he could hear the very same Daily Fix broadcast in the background of the message as he replayed it and listened just a little harder.

Concern filtered into Matt's brain, creasing his eyebrows and the smell of his coffee no longer soothed his wretched soul. He broadened his senses, finding Peter in his studio, heart racing, more than normal, and breath barely under control.

"Stupid," he was whispering to himself, "what if he actually comes down?! Stupid-"

Matt sighed, standing up and abandoning his coffee before turning off the TV. The guest agent had left already. He wanted to hear more about Spider-Man, the name struck familiarity to him in a way he couldn't put his finger on, but the kid downstairs demanded his attention a little more.

He definitely sounded like he needed a friend.

He grabbed his glasses, cane, jacket, enough cash for seven hours of pay, and sent Peter a message announcing that he'll be down soon. Peter received it, took a deep breath, turned off the TV, and wiped—by the sound of it combined with a salty smell—tears from his eyes and cheeks.

Lord, give Matt strength.

#morning reblog

[jinmukangwrites]

I feel bad that all my fics are locked, but I also just discovered that I can copy the download links and send them, so if there's ever anything someone wants to read but you 1. Don't have an AO3 account and 2. Can't find it on my Tumblr, feel free to send me a message and I can send you the desired kind of download link!

#jin updates

[jinmukangwrites]

Mystery Upstairs - Chapter 7

Fandom: Spider-Man (MCU), Marvel, Daredevil

Rating: G

Warnings: mentions of panic attacks, mild cop violence, canon typical violence, Matt taking the Lord's name in vain, the author not knowing if taking the Lord's name in vain is something Catholics worry about, the author not knowing every detail on how the legal system works and will tell you to blame Foggy on getting anything wrong and not the author themself.

Ao3

Summary: Peter needed a place to stay after the universe forgot about him. Luckily, there's a complex in Hell's Kitchen that won't ask questions. It's only chance that Peter recognizes the face of the Lawyer upstairs.

Meanwhile, Matt cannot help himself from checking in on his new, young neighbor who couldn't be old enough to be out of highschool

----

"I think I don't know is becoming one of my least favorite things to hear, ever," Foggy said after a full 15 seconds of silence. Funnily enough, Foggy wasn't lying.

Matt had just finished explaining the basics of the whole Peter situation, telling most of the information that he knew—leaving out specifically that Peter had somehow reacted to May Parker's name, that wasn't something he couldn't give anything more than speculation on... speculation that also had a lot of I don't know's that would just make Foggy more angry with Matt. 

Foggy, previously happy to see the conversation had switched to something he potentially had more opportunity to involve himself in—legal involvement was his favorite kind of involvement—had unfortunately started asking questions that mattered.

Where did Peter come from? Who were his parents? Why was he on his own? How old was he? Matt please tell me you at least know his last name. Ok, does anyone else find it weird his last name is Parker? That's a little weird right? Yes I know May Parker didn't have any living relatives but come on it's a little weird right? Matt you have that look on your face that you agree it's a little weird. What do you mean drop it?!

Matt sighed, and Foggy dropped it, though Karen's tense posture certainly suggested she hadn't, which was in character. He'd let her do her thing, her job was to snoop, he needed Foggy to focus on the legal things.

"Listen," Foggy continued, "people lose legal documents all the time. House fires, robbery, carelessness, runaways. Everything can be replaced with fee's and various proof of other kinds of identification — but what I'm hearing is that this kid has nothing and that's infinitely more difficult. The Blip made getting identification without proof of citizenship easier, yeah, but it's still difficult. How does he even have a place to stay?"

"He's paying in cash," Matt replied, thoughtfully. "Enough cash that any greedy landlord would happily brush some rules under the rug for."

"Drop the greedy adjective," Foggy waved his hand, "that's all landlords."

"Point stands."

"How'd he even get that cash?" Karen asked, intrigue lacing her breath. "If he doesn't have a job, let alone a way to legally be hired for a job..."

"Probably stole it from his parents," Foggy suggested. "Or robbed a bank. Or he had a job, lost it, got everything liquidized before booking it here to his current situation."

"That's a lot of allegations," Matt sighed, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms across his chest—eyebrows lowered so they brushed against his glasses. "There has to be a way to help him out. People show up out of nowhere all the time."

"We've helped people get their lives back before, the Blip gave us plenty of work," Karen said.

Foggy reminded her before Matt could, rubbing his chin and pacing slightly. "So many people needed their identities back that it was easy to help them. All you had to do really was say you're a lawyer and your client needs a social security card pretty please and the government would give you it just so they could get to the millions of other requests."

Foggy knew more about this line of legal work than Matt did. Foggy liked to help everyone, while Matt usually buried his head into the ones deemed unhelpable.

"The processes for the Blip still exist, I thought?" Matt didn't mean to make it sound like a question. Or well, it sounded like a question to himself, the rise of his voice was just barely caught, for his ears alone. "It hasn't been that long."

"Yes, but long enough they're getting strict again with the process. Plenty of people have jumped onto the opportunity to get documents that they legally shouldn't have. Power to them, really, but it's made it so they'll need more proof — testaments of friends and family, good lawyers, dental records, anything they can get their hands on to prove that you one: was a legal citizen pre-Blip, and two: proof that you blipped at all. Did he Blip?"

"I don't know." Foggy rolled his eyes. "I'm sure the process could be easier with the right lawyers, regardless," Matt suggested.

Foggy sighed, catching the hint. The sigh alone answered the unasked question on whether or not Foggy would help Matt with this. "Just tell me why you want to help so bad, and then I'll get on more research."

Matt smiled. "He's... interesting. Everything about him is a question. Besides, he's a good kid. I'd hate to sit back and watch him fall into homelessness just because of a few missing IDs."

That, and the fact that there were irresistible puzzles to the kid that he didn't mention because of the aforementioned speculation. What did Peter go out and do at night? Why had he reacted so strongly to Matt's phone call with Karen?

"Alright," Foggy said, resigned. "I'll get on it. Just promise me this isn't going to lead us down a huge rabbit hole of the kind of shit you deal with."

Karen scoffed. "Don't make him promise anything he can't keep."

The mood lightened with the semblance of a plan. The three of them settled in to discuss the next steps. Karen would continue to dig into May Parker, Foggy would look into getting IDs for a kid that didn't governmentally exist, and Matt would return home to a fixed embosser and win the looming lawsuit.

-o0o-

Peter blinked as the scream of sirens outside pulled him out from his deep concentration.

Ambulance sirens, two cops, a firetruck...

He shook his head and leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms above his head with a yawn. The time on the oven read nearly midnight and the embosser on his table was just a few screws left of being repaired.

Or, temporarily repaired. Repaired enough to print Mr Murdock's notes and give Peter time to scramble for something to replace the bit's that'll inevitably break again the next time Mr Murdock needed things printed.

The sirens traveled away from him, angry and wailing. They were traveling deeper into Hell's Kitchen, and he desperately scolded himself before his curiosity could even bubble up and wonder where they were going.

Unfortunately, pushing down that curiosity just made him remember the sounds of the sirens that followed May's death...

Maybe he should take a break. Get out of Hell's Kitchen and punch some bad guys. He could tell Mr Murdock he stopped working on the embosser to sleep, so he didn't need to worry about getting paid more than what he could stomach.

The decision was easily made. He noted the time, determined to not get paid for this hour, then scrambled for the suit that he'd stuffed inside his bag.

-o0o-

The fact that it felt good to deck someone across the face probably should have worried Peter, but he felt too good to think about it.

This was doing something. Peter Parker found himself inexplicably erased, trapped in an ocean of isolation, drowning in lies that he couldn't even begin to tell the truth about. But Spider-Man? That guy didn't have to worry about that. That guy could make a difference—a memorable difference—every night. Every victim he helped.

It was a run-of-the-mill theft. Some old man had decided nighttime was the perfect time for a stroll, and some younger spry had thought it was the perfect opportunity to get himself a few extra dollars. The thief had been aggressive, not gun aggressive, knife aggressive, and Spider-Man couldn't have that.

"Woah, dude, watch where you're stabbing that thing, could take an eye out!"

A duck-and-weave around the swinging knife was all it took for Peter to close in. The tense of his arm was familiar, and the impact of his fist was true. He wasn't the best trained at knife-to-hand combat, but most of his problems could just be solved by being really hard to hit combined with the fact he had a bit more strength to use than everyone else.

The thief cried out, crashing back onto his backside and unwittingly throwing his knife to the side in favor of grabbing his smarting jaw.

Something, somewhere deep down, was disappointed that the fight wouldn't last more than a single duck-weave-punch, though the majority of Peter felt pleased with himself. He webbed up the jerk, grabbed the snatched wallet, then returned it to the grateful old man with a smile that creased the eye lenses of his mask.

"Thank you so much," the old man said, shaking Peter's hand. "You're that spider kid, aren't you?"

"Spider-Man," Peter corrected—that something somewhere wincing a bit.

Peter was erased. Spider-Man wasn't. Not all the way. People still knew Spider-Man. J. Jonah Jameson still ranted about him on the news. People recognized the colors he wore, and people tended to thank him by his superhero name.

The only thing about Spider-Man that got torn up by the fabric of the universe was Peter. Anyone who had known him as both identities no longer did, every interaction with Peter being replaced by unnameable recognition or a complete lack of memory in the first place. To what extent? Peter had no idea. He hadn't tried to seek anyone out who had known him as both, well, besides Mr Murdock, but that wasn't exactly on purpose. He also didn't count visiting MJ’s workplace that one time.

Besides, if Mr Murdock was anything to go by, anyone who worked with Spider-Man mask-off didn't remember a single conversation; wrapped up in a mystery of how they knew May Parker that they'll never get the answers to.

He wasn't going to try and see if MJ or Ned or Happy or Doctor Strange were any different.

Besides, he had no idea what would happen if he did regain a relationship with these people. Would the fabric of reality tear itself apart again? He'd love nothing more than to see Peter 2 and 3 again, but he couldn't risk their villains following them through again. What if they came for Peter 1 again? What if they went after his home, blew up the complex, and killed Mr Murdock in the process? What if they went after MJ? Ned? What if Doctor Strange couldn't fix it next time?

He squished that something somewhere further down, refusing to follow those thoughts deeper while he was literally shaking the hand of someone he'd just saved.

Feeling forcefully light and happy, Spider-Man swung through familiar neighborhoods, wishing just a little that he could take off the mask and feel the wind go through his hair. When he passed the busy streets, people pointed up and called out in excitement; when he passed over shady alleyways, shady people quickly split off. Sometimes, his presence was the only thing needed to discourage crime. It made him feel great, like Batman or something. Batman if he was cool and had a great sense of humor.

The night passed on, and almost nothing went wrong. No pooches were screwed. It was nearing sunrise and the semblance of rush hour had begun with the first few cars. He mentally planned the path back to his apartment. He almost got on that, until something shouted at him to stop.

He had already been stopped, mind you, standing awkwardly in a quiet alleyway looking at the street names because none of the buildings nearby were big enough to get a great enough view of the city. But his senses still went off, and someone authoritative commanded him to stop, and something clicked that sounded suspiciously like the safety on a pistol.

He swiveled his body around, frowning at the sight of the cop that stood at the other end of the alleyway, knees shaking and face twisted in confliction.

Uh. Okay? Peter wasn't exactly new to cops showing aggression to him. He had plenty pull their weapons on him at the beginning of his superhero career, and plenty more after Mysterio outed him and accused him of his murder.

But when he had joined the Avengers and fought Thanos... cops didn't do that. He was above their pay-grade, the FBI tended to want to deal with Spider-Man instead, but couldn't because of the mountains of paperwork they'd have to go through. The mountains of paperwork Mr Stark had made himself to make sure no national or international forces could get to him unless he committed an actual crime. Sure, yeah, the Mysterio stuff was an actual crime in their eyes and got Peter in alotta trouble, but after erasing his identity, everyone had gone back to not bothering him.

"Uh, you okay, officer?" He asked.

"Spider-Man," the cop said, a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead, and Peter frowned deeper as the cop didn't even really talk to him there. He had one hand on the pointed gun, the other at the walk-y at his jugular. "It's Spider-Man."

Peter took a step forward and the cop freaked. "Hands up! Get down on your knees! Y-You're under arrest."

The cop really didn't sound like he wanted to be saying those words.

"I'm sorry? What did I do?" Peter slowly got down on his knees, not quite willing to freak out the cop more yet but confident he could swing away if anything escalated as they often did with freaked out cops.

"We have a warrant for your arrest," the officer said, not approaching, he was afraid to. Peter stayed silent and still, the information hitting him in the gut.

But... but the police couldn't arrest him? They didn't have a reason to?

The cop returned to his walk-y, asking for backup, telling his location.

"What are the accusations?" Peter asked, fighting to keep his voice steady. "I'm protected, you have to have a reason."

"Orders from above," the cop said, "I don't know any more... I'm sorry. All the stations across the city have been ordered to take you in."

Well, at least the cop genuinely sounded sorry.

"Orders from who?"

"Some DODC agent," the cop said, his fingers trembling.

Alright.

He heard sirens in the distance and Peter made the quick decision that he should probably scatter; he really didn't fancy getting arrested to sate his curiosity.

He whipped his arm out, shooting with superhuman accuracy to knock the cop's gun out of his hand and stick it to a nearby wall. The man started shouting, hassling to pull out some other weapon, but Peter was already swinging away, his heart to his throat.

-o0o-

Peter's leg bounced as he sat at his kitchen table, staring at the TV as JJJ happily announced that Spider-Man had refused a warrant for his arrest just hours before, which was obvious proof of his criminal and dangerous behavior.

He was going on and on, clearly very happy with the development, and Peter would love nothing more than to turn off the TV and have a very big panic attack, but before JJJ started talking, they had announced that some agent was going to guest on the broadcast and explain more of the situation.

It took fifteen minutes for JJJ to invite the agent on, and when he did, Peter's eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

P. Cleary.

"Fu-"

-o0o-

"I can say for everybody that it's about damn time the DODC is taking actions against that masked menace."

"Spider-Man has been going under the radar for too long," the agent replied. Cleary. Jameson had introduced the agent a few minutes before. Matt wished he had some sort of visual description of the guy, he sounded like an asshole and he was willing to bet his nicest cane that he looked like one too. "While the Sokovia Accords have been repealed, order is still required when dealing with enhanced individuals. Spider-Man has been protected under the good will of Tony Stark, which at the time, was all the we needed to allow Spider-Man the freedom to remain anonymous in his work even after Stark's death. However, in light of recent incidents at the London Bridge as well as the Statue of Liberty, that protection has been called into question. After an investigation, we've found that the protection documents from Tony Stark granting Spider-man's right to be a vigilante as well as work with the Avengers have been... corrupted.

"Until we can meet with Spider-Man or a credible source that can vouch for him to redraft his order of protection, we regret to announce to the public that Spider-Man is to be considered dangerous, and should be avoided. His recent interaction with a local officer—attacking the officer and resisting arrest—proves that what we're doing is for the safety of the people."

"And why would you announce this great news on the Daily Fix?"

Cleary shifted. Forgive him Lord, but Christ on a cross this guy radiated smugness even through the television waves. It's a good thing Matt hadn't caught the attention of the DODC, people tended to look at louder vigilante's before they set their sights on Hell's Kitchen.

"To send Spider-Man a message before things get more messy for him. Spider-Man, turn yourself in, make this easy for everyone. We just want to get to the bottom of things, and the more you resist, the messier things will get—"

A voice message from Peter vibrated his phone, pulling his attention from his morning routine. Sure, listening to the news while drinking caffeine wasn't exactly the best routine for his anxiety, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do to keep sane. He navigated his phone to click play on the message, a frown working its way onto his lips.

"Hey Matt, it's Peter, uh, Parker, you gave me your number earlier? I'm just letting you know I finished your embosser and I can give it back whenever. Just so you know I only worked on it for, like, five hours—hah—but you really don't have to pay me or anything. It's okay, like seriously. Anyways just let me know when you're free, or pop by whenever, or, uhm, whatever. Thanks, kay, bye. Yeah."

Well that would have lifted his spirits if Peter didn't sound like he was trying not to cry that entire message. Faintly, he could hear the very same Daily Fix broadcast in the background of the message as he replayed it and listened just a little harder.

Concern filtered into Matt's brain, creasing his eyebrows and the smell of his coffee no longer soothed his wretched soul. He broadened his senses, finding Peter in his studio, heart racing, more than normal, and breath barely under control.

"Stupid," he was whispering to himself, "what if he actually comes down?! Stupid-"

Matt sighed, standing up and abandoning his coffee before turning off the TV. The guest agent had left already. He wanted to hear more about Spider-Man, the name struck familiarity to him in a way he couldn't put his finger on, but the kid downstairs demanded his attention a little more.

He definitely sounded like he needed a friend.

He grabbed his glasses, cane, jacket, enough cash for seven hours of pay, and sent Peter a message announcing that he'll be down soon. Peter received it, took a deep breath, turned off the TV, and wiped—by the sound of it combined with a salty smell—tears from his eyes and cheeks.

Lord, give Matt strength.

#Peter Parker #Spider-Man #marvel #MCU #daredevil #Matthew Murdock #fanfiction #jin writes #AO3

[jinmukangwrites]

The way Peter Parker's comedic awkwardness and Matthew Murdock's sheer audacity possesses me every time I open a document for a new Mystery Upstairs chapter. The things they make me write has me giggling to myself like a maniac at 10pm on a Friday night. I'm not this funny or audacious in real life it's like a whole different person is writing this fic

#just reread the most recent chapter and ive laugh. out loud. several times. pleaSE CAN I BE THIS WITTY IRL??? #whys it only when im writing Peter Parker specifically goddamn #jin rambles #delete later

[jinmukangwrites]

Read all the suggestions (check out the notes!! There's really good stuff there) but I haven't satisfied the craving, adding to the legend centric whump pile myself

hi yes it me does anyone have any legend centric whump and/or hurt/comfort fic recs 👉👈

#im so sorry jfo fic youre being pushed to march i simply MUST write legend whump #jin rambles #jin reblogs

[jinmukangwrites]

Hi, this might be a weird question sorry, but I was wondering if you privates your Linked Universe Playlists on YouTube? I used to listen to them 24/7 and went back to listen to them again and couldn't find them. I understand if you did! Just want to make sure I'm not going crazy hdjehwjq

Ah I'm so sorry! A few weeks back I went on a crazed cleaning of my playlists, I wasn't aware anybody listened to those playlists still, and as I'm not too involved in the fandom anymore and didn't want the email associated to that YouTube profile to be a fandom one anymore when it's meant to be a spam, I decided to delete them.

Im ALMOST POSITIVE there were people who compiled the playlists over to Spotify, I know I got plenty of asks about that as I making them. I guess it's a matter of hoping someone reads this and has those.

My only other suggestion might be more work than it's worth, but I've never deleted a single ask sent to me on this blog, you can probably search WAAAY back through my asks and find the songs as they were sent to me, and remake the playlist. I'm aaaaalmost convinced I might have had a dedicated tag too. I'm sorry about that, realizing now that I should have asked if anyone used that, I have been very convinced for years now that everyone lost interest in them :(

#jin answers #ask

[jinmukangwrites]

hi yes it me does anyone have any legend centric whump and/or hurt/comfort fic recs 👉👈

#jin rambles #linked universe #delete later

[jinmukangwrites]

Me: oh yeah, I'm not really a huge OC person when it comes to fandoms. I enjoy other people's fandom OC's, but I don't ever make my own.

Also me: this is Cable, he's a Clone assigned to Padawan Cal, and he's my bestest boy and most precious son, be nice to him. I will write multiple fics about him.

#ive mentioned Cable in Weep Little Lion Man #and for February im working on a Clone Wars era fic with Cable just. making sure Cal doesnt get himself killed #my man is barely a year old and Cals already giving him white hairs #jin rambles #delete later

[jinmukangwrites]

ALMOST FORGOT. THIS IS LOOSELY INSPIRED BY THIS FANART by @ pokeberry5

Handcuffed/Manacled

Fandom: Nightwing, Batman - All Media Types

Rating: M

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Tags: Self-Sacrificing Dick Grayson, Hurt Dick Grayson, Hurt Tim Drake, Tim Drake Whump, Dick Grayson Whump, Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Blood and Injury, Dick Grayson-centric, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Hopeful Ending, Hostage Situations, Near Death Experiences, Protective Tim Drake

Ao3

Summary: What started as a quiet night quickly turned sour when Tim's comms cut off without warning.

----

"I think I have a pimple on my chin, and I'm about to get violent about it."

Dick laughed, swinging under a fire-escape—it creaked, but he had swung under this particular fire-escape enough times to know it could hold his weight.

At the other end of the comms, Tim sounded bored. Well, he must be bored if breakouts, and not the fun jail kind, had suddenly become the topic of conversation.

"It'll get better when you're older," Dick replied, smirking to himself, his eyes scanning the regular shady alleyways of Blüdhaven as his grapple retracted, then shot off to the next practiced ledge with a jolt down his arm. It looked like it would be a quiet night tonight, not a crime worth punishing to be seen.

"I'm literally almost 20, N," Tim replied, deadpanned. "Also you can't talk. I'm pretty sure you've never had a pimple in your life."

"Not on my face, not really," Dick agreed. He could hear Tim's weight land heavily on puddled Gotham streets through the other end of the comm. Seemed like he, too, was having a slow night. "But bacne? Whoah-boy. Pretty sure I have one right below my left shoulder-blade, it's driving me nuts."

"You said it gets better when you're older."

"I'm still young."

Tim snorted. Despite the empty streets being the only one to see it, Dick grinned.

"You literally asked me what gyatt meant the other day."

"In my defense, I said I'm young, not that I'm twelve. Believe it or not, I'm also not terminally on TikTok."

Tim laughed, and Dick followed.

It wasn't often he could just hang out like this. Somebody was always busy, or somebody didn't have the social battery, or was getting over an argument, or was doing something with someone else, or there was a storm over Gotham and the connection didn't hold despite the constant fixes Barbara made to the system, bless her. Honestly, when he contacted Tim, the response "yeah I'm free" was a very pleasant surprise, especially after he'd just gotten a "not tonight" from Cassandra a few minutes before.

"So, how's it going on your end?" Dick asked. He let the swing of his grapple slow as the ground came up. He took a few running steps, carefully bending his knees, coming to a stop on solid ground as the grapple fully retracted into his escrima stick. He attached the useful weapon on his back next to its pair.

Tim sighed. "Is it bad I'm almost hoping someone's getting mugged with every empty alleyway I check?"

"Probably," Dick responded lightly, "but also, same."

"Of course I don't want anyone getting hurt, you know? But like, maybe just a little bit of threatening? Some yelling? Some asshole with too much ego needing to be knocked down a peg? I'm itching to kick someone in the face and I don't think that's something people should itch to do."

"Trust me," Dick responded, "I think I'd rather hear gimme all your money than you won the lottery right now."

Hindsight had Dick wishing he had some wood to knock on.

Tim started to ramble about how the most interesting thing he'd seen that night was a cat messing with a rat outside a doughnut shop, and Dick was strolling the quiet streets, a city away, a thirty minute drive at midnight, listening with a smile. It could have continued like this the rest of the night, and he would have been content. He would have said goodbye to Tim, stumbled into his apartment, did some stretches, ate a toaster strudel, then gone to bed happy. Bored, but happy. Glad no one needed saving, Nightwing wasn't a factor in life or death, he could rest, knowing the quiet nights were rare and precious.

Tim cut off in the middle of his ramblings, and tonight wasn't rare or precious.

"Red Robin?"

"I heard something. Just a sec."

He was whispering, voice tight, Dick could almost imagine the narrowed eyes behind white domino lenses.

Warm pressure washed over him, the physical feeling of a happy moment turning stale, starting at his ears, settling threateningly in his stomach.

Nearly a minute passed, Dick had to remind himself to breathe during it.

"Huh," Tim said, finally, voice shaken a little. "I could have sworn I-"

Static.

Dick was on the emergency channels before his heartbeat could finish its first stutter.

"Oracle," Dick said, "I've lost contact with Red Robin."

-o0o-

And that was how the nightmare started.

The last time he sped this quickly across the distance spreading between Blüdhaven and Gotham—often times too small, at times like this, too long—was when Damian had fainted at school. Nothing serious, apparently he had forgotten to eat and it was a hot day.

This was serious. Bab's was able to report Tim's vitals spiking, then slowing into unconsciousness mere seconds before any signal between Tim and the family cut off.

Every bat in the city scrambled. A fine oiled machine, like students practicing drills for school invaders; a machine that shouldn't have to be this oiled.

Dick took the west, ignoring how his ankles ached and his back ached and his jaw ached. Fingers creaked, ribs squeezed, stomach clenched. The sun would rise soon. Maybe a citizen or two would wake up for work and see a bat out and be baffled by it for a moment, then wonder if it's a sort of bunker down and call out kind of day.

He followed Tim's footsteps, checking alleyways, passing the doughnut shop with a rat corpse in the gutter, looking up at the pipes and gargoyles that had scratches from grappling hooks, some fresh, some very not.

The sun rose. It hung in the sky. It set.

Nothing.

He needed to eat. Everyone needed to eat. Damian was the only one resembling someone who could stand on their own two feet and it wasn't from a lack of caring but more from a responsible butler forcing the kid to go to school. Damian wasn't happy about that, the family had to move to a different channel while Damian argued over the comms for a solid 30 minutes.

Dick kept returning to the alleyway Tim's last location had pinged from, like if he looked again, Tim would be there that time. He was exhausted, to put it plainly. He was tired to the core, from the lack of sleep, and from once again, fearing for the life of a younger sibling. His eyes desperately wanted to close, but he knew that if he stopped looking even for a second, he'd see Jason's grave, feel Damian's blood, hear the silence coming from Stephanie's empty chair.

Not Tim. Not Tim too. Not Tim again.

Can't the universe let him catch a break? Or, at least, let it be him instead?

A grim thought. He had to keep looking.

There wasn't any sign of a struggle. No Red Robin branded weapons stuck in the brick walls, no dented dumpsters, not a single speck of blood. It was like Tim was kidnapped by the fabric of reality itself; glitched and removed, plucked out of thin air.

The irony and deja vu wasn't lost on him.

He sighed to himself, searching around the alleyway, poking at the same clueless details until maybe his fingers would leave indents in concrete.

Something blinked. Faint. Red. Rolled under a dumpster, near unnoticeable.

Dick noticed it. His blood ran cold.

He could hear Alfred get on the comms, demanding everyone return home for dinner before they do Tim no good by letting exhaustion win, but he ignored it for a second as he crept to the dumpster, reaching his hand under to pull out a small device no larger than the tip of his pointer finger.

Tim's comm.

He'd checked under the dumpster before. Several times. This wasn't there before.

It had to have been returned here. Purposely.

It was blinking like it was connected to something, which was impossible because Oracle said the signal was completely disconnected, and only she could connect it back to the family again.

He took out his own comm, wiped off alleyway water from Tim's, then replaced it in his ear.

"Is anyone there?" Dick asked, not knowing if he wanted an answer.

A second passed, he felt like he'd throw up.

A shaking voice responded. "N, go to these coordinates. Come alone, or he's going to kill me."

-o0o-

Dick went alone. He was instructed to keep on the earpiece, and that the kidnapper would know if he muted to warn the others.

The coordinates lead him to no special location at all. A thirty minute walk from where Tim had initially disappeared, a nook under the freeway where flood water could drain.

Not a soul awaited him there.

A blue backpack, abandoned—no, purposely placed—awaited him there.

Nothing was good about this. Tim had sounded weak and frightened to his trained ears, brave to anyone else. Dick felt like getting stabbed would hurt less than this.

He didn't care. He didn't know what else to do.

Tim had long since stopped responding to Dick after giving the initial instructions—the comm was mostly for the kidnapper to keep Dick under control—but he didn't need instructions to know that whatever happened next involved that blue bag.

He stepped up to it, hands long past the point of shaking that they're deathly stable as he unzipped it.

A device about the size of a pen greeted him. Thin, sleek, nothing special besides the tip being a very threatening button the size of a push pin.

"Gloves off," Tim whispered. "I- Nightwing- don't do it- I'm-" he cut off with a shout. The line went silent.

Dick didn't hesitate to take his gloves off and press the button.

Two things happened. The first was quicker, while the second was more physical.

The earpiece shorted out, and anything powered on Dick's body—his removed comm, his tracker, the sensors to his vitals, even the batteries to his escrima sticks—went completely dead.

He had just a millisecond to process that before nausea washed over with a prick to his thumb.

His vision swam, and he collapsed, black consuming him before he hit the ground.

-o0o-

"Just my luck," A modulated voice said exactly as Dick found himself waking up enough to comprehend words being said to him, "I've always wanted to meet Nightwing."

His arms were behind his back, wrists locked with tight bands of cuffed metal. Gravity told him he was sitting up, spine slumped against a wall, but sharp tugs in his hair told him that a hand clutched the strands, holding his neck up. He knew before he opened his eyes that the face of the speaker would greet him.

Or well, the helmeted face. Close enough.

Dick glared through the grogginess of fading unknown drugs. His face felt numb, tongue heavy, but the movement at least assured him that there was still pressure over his eyes.

The attacker regarded him back, faceless, unmoving, as if waiting for Dick to make the first move.

Dick didn't have a lot of options in terms of first moves.

So he took the moment to get a better grasp of the situation. He had a lot of practice with this kind of situation, it didn't take long to assess himself, the villain of the week, and the surrounding room.

He, himself, was fine. A little woozy from whatever drug was shot into his system, but it was fading with only slight lingering feelings of nausea, numbness, and weakness to the extremities. His hands were pressed between his back and the wall, his shoulder blades touching the faded wallpaper, making it clear his weapons had been removed. Other places that held weapons and tools were suspiciously light.

The person in front of him had a large, muscular build, in-between the range of Jason to Slade. Tall, closer to seven feet than six, combat boots, armored fabric suit, a gun strapped to a thigh the size of a basketball. The suit was nondescript, black, with the occasional gray accent, the armored fabric mixing with armored plates where organs are concerned. The helmet was nothing more than a glorified biker-helmet that wanted to look sci-fi.

All signs pointed to human and male, though meta wasn't ruled out yet. All Dick knew for sure was that this wasn't a run of the mill criminal; maybe something closer to a bounty hunter, or assassin, or some disgruntled asshole with a vendetta and actual knowledge of how to carry that vendetta out. Truly, the Slade vibes were strong with this one.

Dick couldn't see any other weapons on the attackers body, but granted, he was sitting on his ass against a withering wallpapered wall, head held up by a fist of hair, a helmeted figure crouched down staring back.

Behind the figure, however, was where Dick's eyes settled. The room was small, a hundred square feet give or take, comprised of cement floor, walls water-rotted and peeling, a door chipped and unkept. Between Dick and the door, however, was a collapsed body, dressed in familiar colors, cape tattered and clothes twisted.

Tim.

He laid curled on his side, hair waterfalling over an exhausted face. His arms were wrenched behind his back, no doubt restrained. What made Dick's gut squirm was the trail of blood dripping down an obviously broken nose, over Tim's tight lips, down his cheeks, puddled on the ground.

Fresh.

Dick's face must have done something with that observation, because his captor chuckled and turned their visor at Tim. "Poor boy needed come company."

Even modulated, the extra words allowed Dick to pinpoint the accent as American, West Coast. Not necessarily useful information, but hey, accents sometimes identified.

Dick tore his eyes away from Tim and clenched his fists tight enough the cuffs dug into his tendons.

"What do you want, you bastard."

An amused huff. "Nothing you can give me. I have you right where I need you."

"Why here? Why us?"

"The boy happened to be the first one I saw. You happened to be the first one to find my next trap. This isn't personal, bat."

Frustration pooled. "If you think this will get you Batman, or-"

The man laughed, letting go of Dick's hair and standing up. "Batman isn't my goal. I just need you here."

This can't be good. A villain wanting to get at Batman is one thing, a villain not caring about Batman is another.

Why capture them if not to interrogate them?

The man stepped away from Dick, and Dick felt his whole body tense as he stopped above Tim's prone form. Tim swallowed, then glared up at their captor.

Then their captor, with no warning, lifted a leg and nailed Tim in the stomach.

Tim choked off a breathless scream, and Dick found himself on his feet in the next moment. His vision, however, jolted, and his legs twisted around each other, tripping him up and having him crumple disgracefully to the hard floor with an irritated growl. Damn side effects of damn drugs.

Their captor chuckled, amused, and stepped over to Dick while Tim coughed for breath. A large hand wrapped around Dick's bicep then dragged him back to the other side of the room. Instead of just leaving him there, however, his hands were pushed down to the floor and the chain between his cuffs were locked onto something solid and unmoving. Some sort of bolt.

"Don't worry, it'll be over soon," The man said, stepping away from Dick, sounding full of himself and confident. The prick. "Play nice, and you both will get out of this alive."

Then, he left, stepping over Tim and leaving out the door, a lock sounding in his wake.

"Red," Dick called, the moment they were alone. "Hey, look at me."

Tim, his expression more out of it than what Dick's seen in years, turned his face toward Dick. "N... 'm sorry."

What had that monster done to Tim?

"No sorry," Dick said, forcing his voice to remain calm as he ran another scan along Tim's body. Nothing visibly violent greeted him back, nothing but the broken nose. Perhaps everything else was hidden under his suit, and perhaps the cocktail of a weak immune system, drugs, and captivity, didn't mix well. "I'm here now. Talk to me, what happened before I got here?"

Tim took a deep breath, stealing his expression and shifting slightly. "I- not much. He kicked me around a bit, only took me out of the room once to use the bathroom—blindfolded. Then he told me to... tell you to find his trap."

"Nothing about his goals? No questions or anything?"

Tim shook his head, then winced, spitting some blood from his lips. "Nothing explicitly said. I... think he has a partner outside, and I think we're just distractions."

"For what?"

Tim shrugged with the shoulder he wasn't laying on, looking frustrated and tired. At least the more he talked, the more awake he started to look. "It's a good plan if we are just distractions. When was the last time you slept?"

Ouch.

"I don't think anyone's slept," Dick responded softly, feeling like an idiot for being so predictable. If a distraction was the goal, then them both being captured will run the whole family down to the bones, cause them to lock up inwards and assume another will be next, focus in on the areas they disappeared from.

It could leave any number of targets around Gotham completely ignored.

"At least," Tim continued, "I think he's not going to kill us when they get what they want."

No, helmets and voice modulators and blindfolded bathroom trips didn't usually predict a homicidal villain.

"And if they don't get what they want?"

A beat of silence. "When I tried to convince you to not come... he broke my nose. No hesitation."

Great.

"Alright. We either hope they get what they want and let us go..." Dick looked around the walls, a single camera blinked back, no microphone. He lowered his voice. "Or we escape."

"How?" Tim asked, his voice going unimpressed, hinting that the boy had already been trying that.

Dick slowly sat up, angling his body so it didn't look too obvious he was hiding his hands from the camera. He wrapped his fingers around his anchor to the floor, the bolt wobbled a bit.

"Bolt's loose. I'll get my hands free, then I'll get us both out of here."

Tim relaxed a bit, relief a visible wave. "Sorry, but I'm glad you're here."

"It's okay," Dick responded, throwing a reassuring smile. "I'm glad too."

He'd rather be here with Tim than back outside, not knowing.

At least here, he had a chance to protect Tim.

-o0o-

The kidnapper, which Tim and Dick had worked together to nickname "Visor", returned about two hours later. Dick couldn't help but tense when the door opened while Tim gave a hard glare from where he had worked himself up into a seated position.

"The bats are widening their search a little too close to where I don't want them," Visor said as he walked in. "I need some incentive to drive them away."

Tim stiffened, his eyes traveling over to something Visor held, previously hidden from vision but now fully in view.

Dick stiffened too.

One of his escrima sticks was held in the enemy's hand, and the reason why wasn't hard to guess.

It wouldn't be hard to lure someone away from somewhere you didn't want them to be if you plant something elsewhere that would catch attention.

"You really think Batman would fall for something as obvious as that?" Dick asked, putting bravado into his voice and succeeding in catching Visor's full attention. "He's probably already figured out that this whole kidnapping thing is a distraction, planting something like that is just going to make it obvious that there's somewhere you don't want him to be."

He wished he could see Visor's face as the large man blankly observed him for a moment, it made it all the more unnerving when Visor broke into a low chuckle. "This is what I admire about you, Nightwing," he said, a smile in his voice, bringing his hands in front of his chest and running his fingers over the stolen weapon. "And what I was most looking forward to when I found it was you who fell for my second trap."

Cold fear settled in his belly. "What?"

"Your martyrism."

Then he turned and hit Tim across the jaw with Dick's escrima, causing the younger hero to fall onto the ground with a cut off shout, the blow coming as a surprise, the thud of his shoulder hitting the cement sounded like a distant roar of thunder to Dick's suddenly ringing ears.

"Hey- HEY!" Dick snarled, he couldn't help it, if Tim was shocked by the sudden violence, then Dick was caught in the whole lightning storm. He went to his knees, straining against the cuffs and the loose anchor. "I'm talking to you!"

Visor laughed, and it dug the pit deeper. "Now this is the cherry on top."

Dick had met plenty of sadists. He'd been held hostage by many of them. And yet, they usually took the bait, they usually ignored who Dick wanted them to ignore and went after him just to wipe his arrogance off his face. Sure, it cost him a straight nose, a scar here and there, a few weeks bedrest, but it was always worth it, because it meant he was the only one who got hurt. He did his job as the first Robin. As Nightwing. As the oldest brother.

But Visor had anticipated that, and instead of taking Dick's bait, he immediately found that the exact way to hurt both hostages the most was to keep Nightwing perfectly untouched.

He hit Tim again, but Tim didn't shout. He probably figured out Visor's goal was to make this hurt for Nightwing and had decided that keeping stony and quiet and brave would hurt Dick less. Tim had been through worse, after all. They all have. A beating with a glorified stick was nothing.

Somehow, it hurt more to see Tim glance at Dick, forgiveness and bravery and determination shining through those white lenses, than it would have been to hear him scream.

Dick wanted to scream.

He met Tim's eyes, and grinded his jaw shut.

By the time Visor had a satisfactory spray of blood across the escrima stick and left, humming to himself, Dick's wrists were slick and red beneath bands of silver, the anchor looser without him even intentionally trying.

And Tim laid still on the floor.

-o0o-

Hours passed again. Tim remained unconscious for most of it, even after Dick had tried and tried again to stir him with voice alone.

He watched Tim breathe, terrified one lungful would be the last, images of corpses and funerals flashing behind his eyelids every time he blinked.

He couldn't do this again. He couldn't endure another sibling's funeral. A part of him died with every one—there couldn't be much more of him left. Them coming back to life didn't revive those parts of him. Those parts haunted him in his nightmares, and if Tim... if Tim didn't survive this one... if Tim didn't survive because some fucker knew it would hurt more to watch... those parts would drag him under, and he knew he wouldn't try to swim back up.

He worked at the bolt holding him down. Visor wouldn't have another chance to hit Tim again. When he came back in the room, Dick was going to end this.

Near the end of the third hour, Tim stirred, groaning.

Dick quickly called for his attention, and Tim, bless him, did his best to respond.

"D..ik?"

His jaw was swollen. A tooth had been spat out a blow or two before the blow that knocked him out.

Dick didn't even care about identities right now.

"Hey, hey, you're okay. I'm gonna get us out of here."

Tim took a few deep breaths through his mouth, spitting blood onto the floor, not daring to move what must be an aching body.

"... kay..."

"Just hold on a little longer. You're being so brave. Just a little longer, I promise."

Tim, half conscious, in pain, put on something that must be intended to be a brave face, but it only broke Dick's heart more. Tim lost the fight with consciousness, and fell back into what couldn't be a painless slumber.

About an hour later, Visor returned.

The anchor wasn't loose enough to escape yet, and Dick had to swallow his panic.

Even with the helmet, Visor didn't look happy.

"How did they know," he growled, striding forward and grabbing Dick by the neck. "How did you tell them."

The pressure wasn't strong enough to choke, but it was just shy of becoming so. Dick should feel afraid of that, and yet, he only felt relief that in Visor's true anger, he walked straight past Tim.

"I told you," Dick hissed, the fingers oh so close to squeezing, he could feel it inside his throat. "You're an idiot to think they wouldn't catch on."

The replying sneer was audible, physical in a twitch of fingers. "That's where you're wrong, we planned for this. I have two hostages, you're my bargaining chip for a prisoner exchange."

Dick thinned his lips to keep from vocalizing that in the end, when it came to the Batfamily, prisoner exchanges never worked in the enemy's favor.

"I just have to show them I'm serious first," Visor continued, his voice lowering to an eerie promise, like rolling fog in ancient mountains. "I only need one hostage."

The words processed milliseconds too late, Visor had shoved Dick away and had walked back toward Tim, kneeling, hands reaching towards his younger brother's neck.

Something untamable tore out of Dick's throat, taking control over his body. His heart was a beast clawing at his ribcage, panic swallowing him whole. As Visor began to choke Tim, the boy too unconscious to give more than the body's sluggish, natural reaction, Dick began to pull at his chains, at the anchor, the pain in his wrists meaning nothing to the mere feet between him, and the monster killing his little brother.

"You fucking bastard," he roared, vocal chords straining with his wrists, his own shouting thousands of miles away, drowned out with the suffocating panic and the ringing in his ears. "Touch him and I'll kill you!"

Visor ignored him. Tim was twitching, eyes opening with pain and confusion, legs jolting and arms tugging at his own handcuffs.

Seconds passed. Seconds that engrained themselves into Dick's soul like an unwanted tattoo. Finally, as Tim's face turned red under the blood smeared on his cheeks, as his eyes began to flutter back shut, the anchor fell loose.

It was as easy as breathing to contort his body in a way that allowed his wrists to pass under his legs and in front of his body. He was running the next instant, crashing into Visor, bodies colliding in shouts and struggles, shoulders hitting the cement away from Tim.

Tim erupted into very painful coughs, and Dick... Dick couldn't bring the monster back in.

His fists wanted impact. His fingers wanted pressure. His skin wanted blood that belonged to the man below him.

Visor didn't make the bloodlust easy. He put his weight into struggling. There was a reason this man was able to capture not one, but two bats within their own city. He fought back like a demon fresh out of Hell, his own blows landing with promised swelled purple bruises across his jaw, shoulders, neck, stomach. At some point, he even managed to kick Dick off with a heavy boot, knocking Dick across the small room and slamming his back into the water rotted walls. He said something, something prideful and angry and arrogant, something that turned to static to Dick's angry ears.

He went to kick Dick in the stomach before Dick could get back up, but while Visor fought like a demon out of Hell, Dick had an older devil inside of him, one that's been caged for much, much longer.

Dick will make him wish he went for the gun.

The pain meant nothing, it didn't slow him down as he scrambled to his feet and jumped onto the larger man, wrapping his legs around his torso and flipping him down onto the ground, back under Dick, at the perfect angle for Dick to bring his bound hands up and down over and over and over again until the helmet cracked, visor shattered, splinters going into bloodied hands below bloodied wrists controlled by a bloody hatred that, after this, he knew would haunt him.

Visor tried to fight back, and he tried until he couldn't. He tried until his helmet fell off and his face was exposed, cheekbones cut, nose cracked, jaw loose, eyes terrified and half-lidded and losing focus.

Dick didn't stop.

He wanted Visor dead.

He didn't stop until a body crashed into his own, arms large and strong wrapping around his waist and tearing him from Visor and pinning him down to the ground, heavy hands on his shoulder blades, pinning his bound hands between the cement and his heaving stomach. Dick struggled, brain screaming at the sudden change.

"Get Red out of here, B!" A voice shouted above him, "I got him!"

The voice was familiar. Through blurred eyes, the form that stooped down to Tim was familiar too.

Batman undid Tim's restraints and carefully lifted the limp body into his hands, eyes barely casting a second torn glance back at Dick, who was completely pinned under Jason's weight, before leaving the room.

Dick breathed. He breathed like he'd been deprived of air for hours on end, windpipe bursting open, the edges fading.

His brain caught up with him. Jason had positioned himself perfectly, almost purposely, to obscure Dick's view to Visor. He didn't release Dick, and Dick knew why.

Jason understood this anger. This fury. This rage that took everything that made you you and replaced it with something you wouldn't recognize in the mirror. He kept Dick pinned, not speaking, not accusing, not comforting, just there until Duke and Cass arrived to drag Visor out of the room, eyes very carefully avoiding Dick like if they looked, everything they thought they knew about him would be destroyed and replaced with something unstomachable.

When they left, Jason jumped off like Dick was on fire, and Dick scrambled away like he was acid.

Silence filtered between the two of them. Jason stood near the door, as if afraid Dick would bolt, but in all honesty, Dick didn't have even a fraction of the energy to do something like that, even if the anger hadn't suddenly been replaced with exhaustion and self-hatred.

"Was he breathing?"

"Tim? Or Zeek?"

Zeek. That was his name? Of course they figured that out too.

"Tim first."

"Yeah, B has him back at the cave. Alfred's got him stable."

Dick swallowed. How long had he been here? How long had Jason been here making sure Dick didn't murder someone? 

"Zeek is also alive, GPD has him handcuffed to a gurney on the way to the hospital."

Dick brought his knees to his chin... and he could only bring himself to nod.

Jason approached a second later and finally got the cuffs unlocked around Dick's shredded wrists. As he bandaged them, talked to him about getting him back to the cave... Dick felt nothing.

-o0o-

"Hey."

"... Hey."

"You weren't answering your phone, so," Tim shrugged, looking all too comfortable and normal standing in the entrance doorway of Dick's apartment.

"Tim, I'm..." Dick had his hand behind his neck, wrists achy. He regretted opening the door, he thought it was the landlord or something. "You look good."

Makeup covered the bruises on his neck, that much was obvious, and Tim wore a high collar hoodie. Everything else looked about as healed as Dick's wrists.

"Yeah," Tim smiled, pushing his way inside. "A few weeks of Alfred-enforced-bedrest can do that. Finally escaped."

"Tim, now really isn't a good time," Dick said as Tim took off his shoes and raided the freezer.

"Knew you'd have some," he said victoriously, ignoring Dick and pulling out a tub of ice cream. "You always have a stash. What are you feeling? I'm feeling a Lord of the Rings marathon."

Dick sighed, and closed the door. "I don't have the extended."

"That's alright," Tim pulled two bowls out of Dick's cupboards and set the tub of ice cream on the counter to thaw. "I brought them."

"Tim, what is this?"

"I think you know," Tim said lightly. "Bruce keeps saying that space is what you need, but I think ice cream will help quicker."

"I'm fine. It's you I'm worried about."

"Liar. Well, that first bit is a lie."

"I'm dealing."

"With me, and ice cream, and Lord of the Rings."

Dick, defeated, sank into the sofa and grabbed the remote. "You're impossible."

"No, I just know you. You blame yourself for me getting hurt, and you blame yourself for not getting us out of there. I also know you want to wallow in your guilt for as long as you can, and you know the second I tell you I don't blame you, it's not your fault, you're human and you're a victim too, yes I know you still blame yourself so I'll forgive you for you, etcetera etcetera you won't be able to wallow in the guilt. Hence, the ignored phone-calls. Hence, ice cream. Lord of the Rings."

Dick sighed. "You can say that, but I still feel awful, Timbers."

"That's okay," Tim said, joining Dick on the sofa, handing him a bowl of ice cream, and pulling out the first DVD of Lord of the Rings, the extended version. "I'm here until you don't anymore. Keep in mind, I'm also feeling Pirates of the Caribbean."

That wormed a smile. It almost felt traitorously real. "And Star Wars?"

Tim stood up and went to the DVD player, opening the case.

"Star Trek too if you want."

"Thank you, Tim. And I'm sorry."

"I don't blame you, and believe it or not, it wasn't your fault."

He slid the disk in, and sat down next to Dick, leaning on Dick's shoulder with a content sigh, pulling his own ice-cream bowl up to his chin.

Dick couldn't help it. He melted, allowing Tim to get comfortable, allowing himself to get comfortable.

It felt vile to allow any kind of comfort, but Tim was right, they've had this rodeo before, and with quiet conversations during the quiet scenes, he wasn't surprised he felt a little better by the time they put in The Return of the King.

Not all the way. That would probably take a few more marathons, and maybe a hug, another bowl of ice-cream.

And for a whole night and most of the morning, the guilt went forgotten, and he knew it would be okay. He would be okay.

Because Tim was beside him. Breathing, alive, softly snoring as sunlight filtered through the window.

And that wasn't changing, not any time soon.

#not tagging them because its a loose inspiration but an inspiration nonetheless

[jinmukangwrites]

Pros of taking a break from fandoms: get to recharge and relearn what you love about the fandom in the first place.

Cons of taking a break from fandoms: WHAT NICKNAMES DOES DICK USE FOR TIM FUCK IM A FAKE FAN ITS NOT LITTLE WING IS IT THAT'S JASON OOOH FUCK OOOH NO

#i edited it to ''timbers'' #jin rambles #delete later

[jinmukangwrites]

Handcuffed/Manacled

Fandom: Nightwing, Batman - All Media Types

Rating: M

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Tags: Self-Sacrificing Dick Grayson, Hurt Dick Grayson, Hurt Tim Drake, Tim Drake Whump, Dick Grayson Whump, Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Blood and Injury, Dick Grayson-centric, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Hopeful Ending, Hostage Situations, Near Death Experiences, Protective Tim Drake

Ao3

Summary: What started as a quiet night quickly turned sour when Tim's comms cut off without warning.

----

"I think I have a pimple on my chin, and I'm about to get violent about it."

Dick laughed, swinging under a fire-escape—it creaked, but he had swung under this particular fire-escape enough times to know it could hold his weight.

At the other end of the comms, Tim sounded bored. Well, he must be bored if breakouts, and not the fun jail kind, had suddenly become the topic of conversation.

"It'll get better when you're older," Dick replied, smirking to himself, his eyes scanning the regular shady alleyways of Blüdhaven as his grapple retracted, then shot off to the next practiced ledge with a jolt down his arm. It looked like it would be a quiet night tonight, not a crime worth punishing to be seen.

"I'm literally almost 20, N," Tim replied, deadpanned. "Also you can't talk. I'm pretty sure you've never had a pimple in your life."

"Not on my face, not really," Dick agreed. He could hear Tim's weight land heavily on puddled Gotham streets through the other end of the comm. Seemed like he, too, was having a slow night. "But bacne? Whoah-boy. Pretty sure I have one right below my left shoulder-blade, it's driving me nuts."

"You said it gets better when you're older."

"I'm still young."

Tim snorted. Despite the empty streets being the only one to see it, Dick grinned.

"You literally asked me what gyatt meant the other day."

"In my defense, I said I'm young, not that I'm twelve. Believe it or not, I'm also not terminally on TikTok."

Tim laughed, and Dick followed.

It wasn't often he could just hang out like this. Somebody was always busy, or somebody didn't have the social battery, or was getting over an argument, or was doing something with someone else, or there was a storm over Gotham and the connection didn't hold despite the constant fixes Barbara made to the system, bless her. Honestly, when he contacted Tim, the response "yeah I'm free" was a very pleasant surprise, especially after he'd just gotten a "not tonight" from Cassandra a few minutes before.

"So, how's it going on your end?" Dick asked. He let the swing of his grapple slow as the ground came up. He took a few running steps, carefully bending his knees, coming to a stop on solid ground as the grapple fully retracted into his escrima stick. He attached the useful weapon on his back next to its pair.

Tim sighed. "Is it bad I'm almost hoping someone's getting mugged with every empty alleyway I check?"

"Probably," Dick responded lightly, "but also, same."

"Of course I don't want anyone getting hurt, you know? But like, maybe just a little bit of threatening? Some yelling? Some asshole with too much ego needing to be knocked down a peg? I'm itching to kick someone in the face and I don't think that's something people should itch to do."

"Trust me," Dick responded, "I think I'd rather hear gimme all your money than you won the lottery right now."

Hindsight had Dick wishing he had some wood to knock on.

Tim started to ramble about how the most interesting thing he'd seen that night was a cat messing with a rat outside a doughnut shop, and Dick was strolling the quiet streets, a city away, a thirty minute drive at midnight, listening with a smile. It could have continued like this the rest of the night, and he would have been content. He would have said goodbye to Tim, stumbled into his apartment, did some stretches, ate a toaster strudel, then gone to bed happy. Bored, but happy. Glad no one needed saving, Nightwing wasn't a factor in life or death, he could rest, knowing the quiet nights were rare and precious.

Tim cut off in the middle of his ramblings, and tonight wasn't rare or precious.

"Red Robin?"

"I heard something. Just a sec."

He was whispering, voice tight, Dick could almost imagine the narrowed eyes behind white domino lenses.

Warm pressure washed over him, the physical feeling of a happy moment turning stale, starting at his ears, settling threateningly in his stomach.

Nearly a minute passed, Dick had to remind himself to breathe during it.

"Huh," Tim said, finally, voice shaken a little. "I could have sworn I-"

Static.

Dick was on the emergency channels before his heartbeat could finish its first stutter.

"Oracle," Dick said, "I've lost contact with Red Robin."

-o0o-

And that was how the nightmare started.

The last time he sped this quickly across the distance spreading between Blüdhaven and Gotham—often times too small, at times like this, too long—was when Damian had fainted at school. Nothing serious, apparently he had forgotten to eat and it was a hot day.

This was serious. Bab's was able to report Tim's vitals spiking, then slowing into unconsciousness mere seconds before any signal between Tim and the family cut off.

Every bat in the city scrambled. A fine oiled machine, like students practicing drills for school invaders; a machine that shouldn't have to be this oiled.

Dick took the west, ignoring how his ankles ached and his back ached and his jaw ached. Fingers creaked, ribs squeezed, stomach clenched. The sun would rise soon. Maybe a citizen or two would wake up for work and see a bat out and be baffled by it for a moment, then wonder if it's a sort of bunker down and call out kind of day.

He followed Tim's footsteps, checking alleyways, passing the doughnut shop with a rat corpse in the gutter, looking up at the pipes and gargoyles that had scratches from grappling hooks, some fresh, some very not.

The sun rose. It hung in the sky. It set.

Nothing.

He needed to eat. Everyone needed to eat. Damian was the only one resembling someone who could stand on their own two feet and it wasn't from a lack of caring but more from a responsible butler forcing the kid to go to school. Damian wasn't happy about that, the family had to move to a different channel while Damian argued over the comms for a solid 30 minutes.

Dick kept returning to the alleyway Tim's last location had pinged from, like if he looked again, Tim would be there that time. He was exhausted, to put it plainly. He was tired to the core, from the lack of sleep, and from once again, fearing for the life of a younger sibling. His eyes desperately wanted to close, but he knew that if he stopped looking even for a second, he'd see Jason's grave, feel Damian's blood, hear the silence coming from Stephanie's empty chair.

Not Tim. Not Tim too. Not Tim again.

Can't the universe let him catch a break? Or, at least, let it be him instead?

A grim thought. He had to keep looking.

There wasn't any sign of a struggle. No Red Robin branded weapons stuck in the brick walls, no dented dumpsters, not a single speck of blood. It was like Tim was kidnapped by the fabric of reality itself; glitched and removed, plucked out of thin air.

The irony and deja vu wasn't lost on him.

He sighed to himself, searching around the alleyway, poking at the same clueless details until maybe his fingers would leave indents in concrete.

Something blinked. Faint. Red. Rolled under a dumpster, near unnoticeable.

Dick noticed it. His blood ran cold.

He could hear Alfred get on the comms, demanding everyone return home for dinner before they do Tim no good by letting exhaustion win, but he ignored it for a second as he crept to the dumpster, reaching his hand under to pull out a small device no larger than the tip of his pointer finger.

Tim's comm.

He'd checked under the dumpster before. Several times. This wasn't there before.

It had to have been returned here. Purposely.

It was blinking like it was connected to something, which was impossible because Oracle said the signal was completely disconnected, and only she could connect it back to the family again.

He took out his own comm, wiped off alleyway water from Tim's, then replaced it in his ear.

"Is anyone there?" Dick asked, not knowing if he wanted an answer.

A second passed, he felt like he'd throw up.

A shaking voice responded. "N, go to these coordinates. Come alone, or he's going to kill me."

-o0o-

Dick went alone. He was instructed to keep on the earpiece, and that the kidnapper would know if he muted to warn the others.

The coordinates lead him to no special location at all. A thirty minute walk from where Tim had initially disappeared, a nook under the freeway where flood water could drain.

Not a soul awaited him there.

A blue backpack, abandoned—no, purposely placed—awaited him there.

Nothing was good about this. Tim had sounded weak and frightened to his trained ears, brave to anyone else. Dick felt like getting stabbed would hurt less than this.

He didn't care. He didn't know what else to do.

Tim had long since stopped responding to Dick after giving the initial instructions—the comm was mostly for the kidnapper to keep Dick under control—but he didn't need instructions to know that whatever happened next involved that blue bag.

He stepped up to it, hands long past the point of shaking that they're deathly stable as he unzipped it.

A device about the size of a pen greeted him. Thin, sleek, nothing special besides the tip being a very threatening button the size of a push pin.

"Gloves off," Tim whispered. "I- Nightwing- don't do it- I'm-" he cut off with a shout. The line went silent.

Dick didn't hesitate to take his gloves off and press the button.

Two things happened. The first was quicker, while the second was more physical.

The earpiece shorted out, and anything powered on Dick's body—his removed comm, his tracker, the sensors to his vitals, even the batteries to his escrima sticks—went completely dead.

He had just a millisecond to process that before nausea washed over with a prick to his thumb.

His vision swam, and he collapsed, black consuming him before he hit the ground.

-o0o-

"Just my luck," A modulated voice said exactly as Dick found himself waking up enough to comprehend words being said to him, "I've always wanted to meet Nightwing."

His arms were behind his back, wrists locked with tight bands of cuffed metal. Gravity told him he was sitting up, spine slumped against a wall, but sharp tugs in his hair told him that a hand clutched the strands, holding his neck up. He knew before he opened his eyes that the face of the speaker would greet him.

Or well, the helmeted face. Close enough.

Dick glared through the grogginess of fading unknown drugs. His face felt numb, tongue heavy, but the movement at least assured him that there was still pressure over his eyes.

The attacker regarded him back, faceless, unmoving, as if waiting for Dick to make the first move.

Dick didn't have a lot of options in terms of first moves.

So he took the moment to get a better grasp of the situation. He had a lot of practice with this kind of situation, it didn't take long to assess himself, the villain of the week, and the surrounding room.

He, himself, was fine. A little woozy from whatever drug was shot into his system, but it was fading with only slight lingering feelings of nausea, numbness, and weakness to the extremities. His hands were pressed between his back and the wall, his shoulder blades touching the faded wallpaper, making it clear his weapons had been removed. Other places that held weapons and tools were suspiciously light.

The person in front of him had a large, muscular build, in-between the range of Jason to Slade. Tall, closer to seven feet than six, combat boots, armored fabric suit, a gun strapped to a thigh the size of a basketball. The suit was nondescript, black, with the occasional gray accent, the armored fabric mixing with armored plates where organs are concerned. The helmet was nothing more than a glorified biker-helmet that wanted to look sci-fi.

All signs pointed to human and male, though meta wasn't ruled out yet. All Dick knew for sure was that this wasn't a run of the mill criminal; maybe something closer to a bounty hunter, or assassin, or some disgruntled asshole with a vendetta and actual knowledge of how to carry that vendetta out. Truly, the Slade vibes were strong with this one.

Dick couldn't see any other weapons on the attackers body, but granted, he was sitting on his ass against a withering wallpapered wall, head held up by a fist of hair, a helmeted figure crouched down staring back.

Behind the figure, however, was where Dick's eyes settled. The room was small, a hundred square feet give or take, comprised of cement floor, walls water-rotted and peeling, a door chipped and unkept. Between Dick and the door, however, was a collapsed body, dressed in familiar colors, cape tattered and clothes twisted.

Tim.

He laid curled on his side, hair waterfalling over an exhausted face. His arms were wrenched behind his back, no doubt restrained. What made Dick's gut squirm was the trail of blood dripping down an obviously broken nose, over Tim's tight lips, down his cheeks, puddled on the ground.

Fresh.

Dick's face must have done something with that observation, because his captor chuckled and turned their visor at Tim. "Poor boy needed come company."

Even modulated, the extra words allowed Dick to pinpoint the accent as American, West Coast. Not necessarily useful information, but hey, accents sometimes identified.

Dick tore his eyes away from Tim and clenched his fists tight enough the cuffs dug into his tendons.

"What do you want, you bastard."

An amused huff. "Nothing you can give me. I have you right where I need you."

"Why here? Why us?"

"The boy happened to be the first one I saw. You happened to be the first one to find my next trap. This isn't personal, bat."

Frustration pooled. "If you think this will get you Batman, or-"

The man laughed, letting go of Dick's hair and standing up. "Batman isn't my goal. I just need you here."

This can't be good. A villain wanting to get at Batman is one thing, a villain not caring about Batman is another.

Why capture them if not to interrogate them?

The man stepped away from Dick, and Dick felt his whole body tense as he stopped above Tim's prone form. Tim swallowed, then glared up at their captor.

Then their captor, with no warning, lifted a leg and nailed Tim in the stomach.

Tim choked off a breathless scream, and Dick found himself on his feet in the next moment. His vision, however, jolted, and his legs twisted around each other, tripping him up and having him crumple disgracefully to the hard floor with an irritated growl. Damn side effects of damn drugs.

Their captor chuckled, amused, and stepped over to Dick while Tim coughed for breath. A large hand wrapped around Dick's bicep then dragged him back to the other side of the room. Instead of just leaving him there, however, his hands were pushed down to the floor and the chain between his cuffs were locked onto something solid and unmoving. Some sort of bolt.

"Don't worry, it'll be over soon," The man said, stepping away from Dick, sounding full of himself and confident. The prick. "Play nice, and you both will get out of this alive."

Then, he left, stepping over Tim and leaving out the door, a lock sounding in his wake.

"Red," Dick called, the moment they were alone. "Hey, look at me."

Tim, his expression more out of it than what Dick's seen in years, turned his face toward Dick. "N... 'm sorry."

What had that monster done to Tim?

"No sorry," Dick said, forcing his voice to remain calm as he ran another scan along Tim's body. Nothing visibly violent greeted him back, nothing but the broken nose. Perhaps everything else was hidden under his suit, and perhaps the cocktail of a weak immune system, drugs, and captivity, didn't mix well. "I'm here now. Talk to me, what happened before I got here?"

Tim took a deep breath, stealing his expression and shifting slightly. "I- not much. He kicked me around a bit, only took me out of the room once to use the bathroom—blindfolded. Then he told me to... tell you to find his trap."

"Nothing about his goals? No questions or anything?"

Tim shook his head, then winced, spitting some blood from his lips. "Nothing explicitly said. I... think he has a partner outside, and I think we're just distractions."

"For what?"

Tim shrugged with the shoulder he wasn't laying on, looking frustrated and tired. At least the more he talked, the more awake he started to look. "It's a good plan if we are just distractions. When was the last time you slept?"

Ouch.

"I don't think anyone's slept," Dick responded softly, feeling like an idiot for being so predictable. If a distraction was the goal, then them both being captured will run the whole family down to the bones, cause them to lock up inwards and assume another will be next, focus in on the areas they disappeared from.

It could leave any number of targets around Gotham completely ignored.

"At least," Tim continued, "I think he's not going to kill us when they get what they want."

No, helmets and voice modulators and blindfolded bathroom trips didn't usually predict a homicidal villain.

"And if they don't get what they want?"

A beat of silence. "When I tried to convince you to not come... he broke my nose. No hesitation."

Great.

"Alright. We either hope they get what they want and let us go..." Dick looked around the walls, a single camera blinked back, no microphone. He lowered his voice. "Or we escape."

"How?" Tim asked, his voice going unimpressed, hinting that the boy had already been trying that.

Dick slowly sat up, angling his body so it didn't look too obvious he was hiding his hands from the camera. He wrapped his fingers around his anchor to the floor, the bolt wobbled a bit.

"Bolt's loose. I'll get my hands free, then I'll get us both out of here."

Tim relaxed a bit, relief a visible wave. "Sorry, but I'm glad you're here."

"It's okay," Dick responded, throwing a reassuring smile. "I'm glad too."

He'd rather be here with Tim than back outside, not knowing.

At least here, he had a chance to protect Tim.

-o0o-

The kidnapper, which Tim and Dick had worked together to nickname "Visor", returned about two hours later. Dick couldn't help but tense when the door opened while Tim gave a hard glare from where he had worked himself up into a seated position.

"The bats are widening their search a little too close to where I don't want them," Visor said as he walked in. "I need some incentive to drive them away."

Tim stiffened, his eyes traveling over to something Visor held, previously hidden from vision but now fully in view.

Dick stiffened too.

One of his escrima sticks was held in the enemy's hand, and the reason why wasn't hard to guess.

It wouldn't be hard to lure someone away from somewhere you didn't want them to be if you plant something elsewhere that would catch attention.

"You really think Batman would fall for something as obvious as that?" Dick asked, putting bravado into his voice and succeeding in catching Visor's full attention. "He's probably already figured out that this whole kidnapping thing is a distraction, planting something like that is just going to make it obvious that there's somewhere you don't want him to be."

He wished he could see Visor's face as the large man blankly observed him for a moment, it made it all the more unnerving when Visor broke into a low chuckle. "This is what I admire about you, Nightwing," he said, a smile in his voice, bringing his hands in front of his chest and running his fingers over the stolen weapon. "And what I was most looking forward to when I found it was you who fell for my second trap."

Cold fear settled in his belly. "What?"

"Your martyrism."

Then he turned and hit Tim across the jaw with Dick's escrima, causing the younger hero to fall onto the ground with a cut off shout, the blow coming as a surprise, the thud of his shoulder hitting the cement sounded like a distant roar of thunder to Dick's suddenly ringing ears.

"Hey- HEY!" Dick snarled, he couldn't help it, if Tim was shocked by the sudden violence, then Dick was caught in the whole lightning storm. He went to his knees, straining against the cuffs and the loose anchor. "I'm talking to you!"

Visor laughed, and it dug the pit deeper. "Now this is the cherry on top."

Dick had met plenty of sadists. He'd been held hostage by many of them. And yet, they usually took the bait, they usually ignored who Dick wanted them to ignore and went after him just to wipe his arrogance off his face. Sure, it cost him a straight nose, a scar here and there, a few weeks bedrest, but it was always worth it, because it meant he was the only one who got hurt. He did his job as the first Robin. As Nightwing. As the oldest brother.

But Visor had anticipated that, and instead of taking Dick's bait, he immediately found that the exact way to hurt both hostages the most was to keep Nightwing perfectly untouched.

He hit Tim again, but Tim didn't shout. He probably figured out Visor's goal was to make this hurt for Nightwing and had decided that keeping stony and quiet and brave would hurt Dick less. Tim had been through worse, after all. They all have. A beating with a glorified stick was nothing.

Somehow, it hurt more to see Tim glance at Dick, forgiveness and bravery and determination shining through those white lenses, than it would have been to hear him scream.

Dick wanted to scream.

He met Tim's eyes, and grinded his jaw shut.

By the time Visor had a satisfactory spray of blood across the escrima stick and left, humming to himself, Dick's wrists were slick and red beneath bands of silver, the anchor looser without him even intentionally trying.

And Tim laid still on the floor.

-o0o-

Hours passed again. Tim remained unconscious for most of it, even after Dick had tried and tried again to stir him with voice alone.

He watched Tim breathe, terrified one lungful would be the last, images of corpses and funerals flashing behind his eyelids every time he blinked.

He couldn't do this again. He couldn't endure another sibling's funeral. A part of him died with every one—there couldn't be much more of him left. Them coming back to life didn't revive those parts of him. Those parts haunted him in his nightmares, and if Tim... if Tim didn't survive this one... if Tim didn't survive because some fucker knew it would hurt more to watch... those parts would drag him under, and he knew he wouldn't try to swim back up.

He worked at the bolt holding him down. Visor wouldn't have another chance to hit Tim again. When he came back in the room, Dick was going to end this.

Near the end of the third hour, Tim stirred, groaning.

Dick quickly called for his attention, and Tim, bless him, did his best to respond.

"D..ik?"

His jaw was swollen. A tooth had been spat out a blow or two before the blow that knocked him out.

Dick didn't even care about identities right now.

"Hey, hey, you're okay. I'm gonna get us out of here."

Tim took a few deep breaths through his mouth, spitting blood onto the floor, not daring to move what must be an aching body.

"... kay..."

"Just hold on a little longer. You're being so brave. Just a little longer, I promise."

Tim, half conscious, in pain, put on something that must be intended to be a brave face, but it only broke Dick's heart more. Tim lost the fight with consciousness, and fell back into what couldn't be a painless slumber.

About an hour later, Visor returned.

The anchor wasn't loose enough to escape yet, and Dick had to swallow his panic.

Even with the helmet, Visor didn't look happy.

"How did they know," he growled, striding forward and grabbing Dick by the neck. "How did you tell them."

The pressure wasn't strong enough to choke, but it was just shy of becoming so. Dick should feel afraid of that, and yet, he only felt relief that in Visor's true anger, he walked straight past Tim.

"I told you," Dick hissed, the fingers oh so close to squeezing, he could feel it inside his throat. "You're an idiot to think they wouldn't catch on."

The replying sneer was audible, physical in a twitch of fingers. "That's where you're wrong, we planned for this. I have two hostages, you're my bargaining chip for a prisoner exchange."

Dick thinned his lips to keep from vocalizing that in the end, when it came to the Batfamily, prisoner exchanges never worked in the enemy's favor.

"I just have to show them I'm serious first," Visor continued, his voice lowering to an eerie promise, like rolling fog in ancient mountains. "I only need one hostage."

The words processed milliseconds too late, Visor had shoved Dick away and had walked back toward Tim, kneeling, hands reaching towards his younger brother's neck.

Something untamable tore out of Dick's throat, taking control over his body. His heart was a beast clawing at his ribcage, panic swallowing him whole. As Visor began to choke Tim, the boy too unconscious to give more than the body's sluggish, natural reaction, Dick began to pull at his chains, at the anchor, the pain in his wrists meaning nothing to the mere feet between him, and the monster killing his little brother.

"You fucking bastard," he roared, vocal chords straining with his wrists, his own shouting thousands of miles away, drowned out with the suffocating panic and the ringing in his ears. "Touch him and I'll kill you!"

Visor ignored him. Tim was twitching, eyes opening with pain and confusion, legs jolting and arms tugging at his own handcuffs.

Seconds passed. Seconds that engrained themselves into Dick's soul like an unwanted tattoo. Finally, as Tim's face turned red under the blood smeared on his cheeks, as his eyes began to flutter back shut, the anchor fell loose.

It was as easy as breathing to contort his body in a way that allowed his wrists to pass under his legs and in front of his body. He was running the next instant, crashing into Visor, bodies colliding in shouts and struggles, shoulders hitting the cement away from Tim.

Tim erupted into very painful coughs, and Dick... Dick couldn't bring the monster back in.

His fists wanted impact. His fingers wanted pressure. His skin wanted blood that belonged to the man below him.

Visor didn't make the bloodlust easy. He put his weight into struggling. There was a reason this man was able to capture not one, but two bats within their own city. He fought back like a demon fresh out of Hell, his own blows landing with promised swelled purple bruises across his jaw, shoulders, neck, stomach. At some point, he even managed to kick Dick off with a heavy boot, knocking Dick across the small room and slamming his back into the water rotted walls. He said something, something prideful and angry and arrogant, something that turned to static to Dick's angry ears.

He went to kick Dick in the stomach before Dick could get back up, but while Visor fought like a demon out of Hell, Dick had an older devil inside of him, one that's been caged for much, much longer.

Dick will make him wish he went for the gun.

The pain meant nothing, it didn't slow him down as he scrambled to his feet and jumped onto the larger man, wrapping his legs around his torso and flipping him down onto the ground, back under Dick, at the perfect angle for Dick to bring his bound hands up and down over and over and over again until the helmet cracked, visor shattered, splinters going into bloodied hands below bloodied wrists controlled by a bloody hatred that, after this, he knew would haunt him.

Visor tried to fight back, and he tried until he couldn't. He tried until his helmet fell off and his face was exposed, cheekbones cut, nose cracked, jaw loose, eyes terrified and half-lidded and losing focus.

Dick didn't stop.

He wanted Visor dead.

He didn't stop until a body crashed into his own, arms large and strong wrapping around his waist and tearing him from Visor and pinning him down to the ground, heavy hands on his shoulder blades, pinning his bound hands between the cement and his heaving stomach. Dick struggled, brain screaming at the sudden change.

"Get Red out of here, B!" A voice shouted above him, "I got him!"

The voice was familiar. Through blurred eyes, the form that stooped down to Tim was familiar too.

Batman undid Tim's restraints and carefully lifted the limp body into his hands, eyes barely casting a second torn glance back at Dick, who was completely pinned under Jason's weight, before leaving the room.

Dick breathed. He breathed like he'd been deprived of air for hours on end, windpipe bursting open, the edges fading.

His brain caught up with him. Jason had positioned himself perfectly, almost purposely, to obscure Dick's view to Visor. He didn't release Dick, and Dick knew why.

Jason understood this anger. This fury. This rage that took everything that made you you and replaced it with something you wouldn't recognize in the mirror. He kept Dick pinned, not speaking, not accusing, not comforting, just there until Duke and Cass arrived to drag Visor out of the room, eyes very carefully avoiding Dick like if they looked, everything they thought they knew about him would be destroyed and replaced with something unstomachable.

When they left, Jason jumped off like Dick was on fire, and Dick scrambled away like he was acid.

Silence filtered between the two of them. Jason stood near the door, as if afraid Dick would bolt, but in all honesty, Dick didn't have even a fraction of the energy to do something like that, even if the anger hadn't suddenly been replaced with exhaustion and self-hatred.

"Was he breathing?"

"Tim? Or Zeek?"

Zeek. That was his name? Of course they figured that out too.

"Tim first."

"Yeah, B has him back at the cave. Alfred's got him stable."

Dick swallowed. How long had he been here? How long had Jason been here making sure Dick didn't murder someone? 

"Zeek is also alive, GPD has him handcuffed to a gurney on the way to the hospital."

Dick brought his knees to his chin... and he could only bring himself to nod.

Jason approached a second later and finally got the cuffs unlocked around Dick's shredded wrists. As he bandaged them, talked to him about getting him back to the cave... Dick felt nothing.

-o0o-

"Hey."

"... Hey."

"You weren't answering your phone, so," Tim shrugged, looking all too comfortable and normal standing in the entrance doorway of Dick's apartment.

"Tim, I'm..." Dick had his hand behind his neck, wrists achy. He regretted opening the door, he thought it was the landlord or something. "You look good."

Makeup covered the bruises on his neck, that much was obvious, and Tim wore a high collar hoodie. Everything else looked about as healed as Dick's wrists.

"Yeah," Tim smiled, pushing his way inside. "A few weeks of Alfred-enforced-bedrest can do that. Finally escaped."

"Tim, now really isn't a good time," Dick said as Tim took off his shoes and raided the freezer.

"Knew you'd have some," he said victoriously, ignoring Dick and pulling out a tub of ice cream. "You always have a stash. What are you feeling? I'm feeling a Lord of the Rings marathon."

Dick sighed, and closed the door. "I don't have the extended."

"That's alright," Tim pulled two bowls out of Dick's cupboards and set the tub of ice cream on the counter to thaw. "I brought them."

"Tim, what is this?"

"I think you know," Tim said lightly. "Bruce keeps saying that space is what you need, but I think ice cream will help quicker."

"I'm fine. It's you I'm worried about."

"Liar. Well, that first bit is a lie."

"I'm dealing."

"With me, and ice cream, and Lord of the Rings."

Dick, defeated, sank into the sofa and grabbed the remote. "You're impossible."

"No, I just know you. You blame yourself for me getting hurt, and you blame yourself for not getting us out of there. I also know you want to wallow in your guilt for as long as you can, and you know the second I tell you I don't blame you, it's not your fault, you're human and you're a victim too, yes I know you still blame yourself so I'll forgive you for you, etcetera etcetera you won't be able to wallow in the guilt. Hence, the ignored phone-calls. Hence, ice cream. Lord of the Rings."

Dick sighed. "You can say that, but I still feel awful, Timbers."

"That's okay," Tim said, joining Dick on the sofa, handing him a bowl of ice cream, and pulling out the first DVD of Lord of the Rings, the extended version. "I'm here until you don't anymore. Keep in mind, I'm also feeling Pirates of the Caribbean."

That wormed a smile. It almost felt traitorously real. "And Star Wars?"

Tim stood up and went to the DVD player, opening the case.

"Star Trek too if you want."

"Thank you, Tim. And I'm sorry."

"I don't blame you, and believe it or not, it wasn't your fault."

He slid the disk in, and sat down next to Dick, leaning on Dick's shoulder with a content sigh, pulling his own ice-cream bowl up to his chin.

Dick couldn't help it. He melted, allowing Tim to get comfortable, allowing himself to get comfortable.

It felt vile to allow any kind of comfort, but Tim was right, they've had this rodeo before, and with quiet conversations during the quiet scenes, he wasn't surprised he felt a little better by the time they put in The Return of the King.

Not all the way. That would probably take a few more marathons, and maybe a hug, another bowl of ice-cream.

And for a whole night and most of the morning, the guilt went forgotten, and he knew it would be okay. He would be okay.

Because Tim was beside him. Breathing, alive, softly snoring as sunlight filtered through the window.

And that wasn't changing, not any time soon.

#nightwing #dick grayson #tim drake #red robin dc #fanfiction #dc comics #jin writes #hurt/comfort #whump

[jinmukangwrites]

#thinking of a fic where time is off with the chain and its been too long since hes come home to visit on his new quest #she supports him no matter what and shes so so so proud of him for helping the other heroes #but she still finds herself missing him sometimes #she goes about her day #doing twice the chores as usual #taking care of the farm #finding herself wishing his calloused hands were there to help her own #she goes to the fields #and the scarecrow is there #its been awhile since shes heard its tune #shes lonely today so why not #its not a song she gave it #the dumb easy to remember song that plays to her nearly drives her to tears #happy #sad #lonely #but for a moment #she can feel his hands right next to hers #squeezing them #hes here #hell he home soon #wait for him #stay safe #he misses her #he loves her #she ends the day a little lighter #she doesn't replace the tune #jin reblogs #sorry yall brain is brrrrr about this one

[jinmukangwrites]

Turns out my writing app has a "year in review" feature, and I'm DYING at the difference of time of actually writing vs just having the app open doing nothing

#this is so funny #man when writers say most of our writing is not writing we weren't lying huh #jin rambles #delete later #anyways writing cal whump byeee

[jinmukangwrites]

forever pissed off that TikTok made Bones of all songs the popular one from the new album

#please please please forget all of your opinions on imagining those dragons #just listen to giants #for fucks sake this song has my sanity by a string #jin rambles #delete later #not that bones is a bad song #but FUCK it SUCKS ACTUALLY IT IS A BAD SONG #I CAN SAY THAT AS AN IMAGINE DRAGONS FAN #ITS AN AWFUL SONG #LISTEN TO LITERALLY ANY OTHER SONG FROM THAT ALBUM #things getting heated in the dragons imagineering fandom population only me

[jinmukangwrites]

My general goal for 2024 is

1. Finish Weep Little Lion Man

2. Reach The Plot™ of Mystery Upstairs (so upload at least 3 or 4 chapters instead of one per year lmao)

3. Write at least 1 BTHB2 one-shot per month.

4. Answer every comment on Ao3 (on new fics) this year.

They're small goals, and number three will be the biggest struggle I think, thanks to Long™ writers block and anxiety/depression/irl busy-ness, but I think they're manageable. I'm tired of this blog haveing no writing on it haha. I hope to maybe participate in the Dick Grayson anniversary week too but there are absolutely no promises for that.

#jin rambles #jin updates

[jinmukangwrites]

Still working on that KaiShin fic

Some small jewels were nothing close to solid proof of any phantom thieves nearby.

.

"Shinichi has been something like a nephew to me for his whole life, I'm a close friend of his parents and I've taken him in whenever his parents were away."

The final word for 2023 is...

✨ CLOSE ✨

All versions are a go! Find the word in any WIP and share the sentence containing it! Reply, reblog, stick it in the tags, tag us in a new post, or keep it private. All fandoms, all ships, all writers welcome.

#word game wednesday #jin reblogs