Welcome to 2015! Here's a fic I started a few months ago and never got around to finishing because I had honestly forgotten about it. In case you hadn't noticed, I only seem to write stuff about Dick. Ironic, 'cause I'm a huge lesbian. High five anyone? Nah? Alright, cool. Let's do this.

This wasn't Dick's first time being kidnapped. It might've been the first time in the past six months, but he'd had his fair share of experience in his past five years of living as Bruce Wayne's ward.

His head was still ringing from the blow that had knocked him out, so the numbers were a little fuzzy, but he knew he'd be pretty close to getting a free milkshake if they had a punch card for getting kidnapped.

That's why, when he came to, he was weirdly calm. A blindfold was tight over his eyes and with it in place, Dick couldn't be sure of the conditions he was being held in, so he rationed his oxygen to be safe. That wasn't too hard to do, seeing that he had a good roll of duct tape around his head securing his mouth. He breathed slowly through his nose and worked on loosening the duct tape with his tongue, knowing he could at least try and create a gap big enough to breathe through when he managed to get out of wherever he was and make a run for it.

Moving his body carefully, he came to a lot of conclusions. One was that besides the nasty headache he had going on, he was otherwise unharmed. Another was that he was sitting in a chair, and the floor was some kind of concrete. He was still fully dressed, absent of his phone and wallet from the flat of his pockets, and his utility belt was still tucked into the specially made pocket in his shoe, both of which were still on his feet.

If that wasn't enough to tell him that the person who had kidnapped him was amateur, the restraints would've been a shoo-in. The duct tape had been a nice touch, but everything else was from someone who had never done much more than watch a movie about kidnapping. He tried to decide if maybe the mixed handiwork was from two different people, but he only remembered one guy with a bat in the parking lot. He almost laughed when he remembered that he had a bat, too- a Batman, but he didn't.

His feet were bound in front of him a little tightly, but a quick test told him he could get out of them in his sleep if he needed to. Behind him, his hands were crossed and a wire bound his wrists together. The position was one of the easiest to escape, seeing that he could get his fingers under the wires, and he fumbled until he had the knot right against his left hand. Immediately, an escape plan began to form.

He would get his hands free, but keep them behind him in case he was being watched, and then he'd slip his feet out. When he could move, he would get his eyes free, and then he'd make a break for it with the utility belt in hand. If there wasn't a way out, he would call for help and then make one. If the walls wouldn't blow, they would cut, and if they wouldn't do that, well, he'd just kick until they gave way. There was a little anxiety, but he could get out of here easily enough.

A door opened when he had managed to get his finger in a loop of the knot holding his hands. He stilled immediately, head lifting, trying to take in what he could only hear. He wasn't Sherlock Holmes, but he could feel the eyes drilling into his front and he could hear some kind of confidence in the steps.

"You're awake," a voice said, male, but a little higher on the spectrum.

He imagined that the man's voice was actually deeper and that the stress was making it waver. It confirmed again every amateur suspicion.

"Do you know where you are?"

Dick rolled his eyes beneath the blindfold. It didn't surprise him that the man sounded so confident. He thought he was the first to kidnap Dick. Bruce took a lot of care in seeing that his kidnappings went unheard of, and Dick always got out fast enough that the media never had a clue. This wouldn't be an exception.

For the man's sake, he gave a little shrug. The steps got closer and he genuinely tensed for a moment, but the fear cut short when his blindfold was pulled down around his neck. Dick immediately took in every feature and noted it in the back of his mind, glad that the gag was hiding the flicker of a smile that had just darted over his lips.

"You have nothing to worry about, Richard. If your dad is willing to part with some of his money, you can go home after this. Does that sound alright?" the man taunted.

Dick stared at him for a moment, to show that he had heard at least, before studying the room itself. It looked like a basement. The floors were cement and the walls, between the wooden support beams, were covered in fiberglass insulation. The pink stuff sticking out of it was a lot more intimidating than his bald, football coach-looking kidnapper. He had been right in his assumption about being tied to a chair, and the escape seemed to be a door at the top of a wooden staircase. This was going to be way too easy.

To keep up appearances though, and to keep the man in front of him so he couldn't tell that Dick was making some pretty big headway in ditching his restraints, he put on his biggest doe eyes. He even went so far as to dramatically plead for his freedom, talking as much into the tape as he could. The man, whom Dick had tagged as a 'John Smith' in his head for the time being, ate it up.

'John' was still antsy, but the confidence he was gaining seemed to be ultimately genuine. All Dick needed to do was keep feeding that confidence. If he could get this guy feeling overly cocky, maybe he could get him to turn his back, and maybe even leave the room for a little. It wouldn't take more than ten seconds to get his feet free, hopefully. He couldn't risk too long of a look in case the man wised up, but the tying didn't seem much different than the one he had felt on his wrists. If worse came to worst, he could try taking him on with his feet still bound. It wouldn't be overly difficult. The man probably had a hundred pounds on him, but Bane had quite a bit over 200 on him and they had beaten him once before. He'd had help, obviously, but this guy wasn't Bane.

He gave his best terrified whimper as he slipped his hands out of the wire that bound them, unrolling it between his fingers just in case he needed an on-the-spot weapon.

'John' leaned down to face him with a little sympathetic smile; there was a little fear in his eyes, but a lot less now, and he set a hand to Dick's shoulder. The teen genuinely flinched at the touch. He was uncomfortable with strangers touching him, and even more so with kidnappers doing so. It fed right into the man's grin, but the hand stayed there on his shoulder, and squeezed a little.

"There, there, kid. My partner should be calling your dad any minute now," Dick's eyes widened genuinely, but not for the reason 'John' thought. "We wanted to make sure he noticed you were missing. Just sit tight, yeah? Be a good boy for me."

There was a partner. Dick could take on one guy like this, but two? He needed to take 'John' out right now.

The man straightened up and removed his hand with a little smile, condescending to a T, and he took a little step back. The silence Dick offered must've been just what he was looking for as he spread his arms and offered out his palms.

"See? Not so hard," the man took another step back, and then turned himself around to head for the stairs. "I'll be right back."

Just like that, Dick found himself staring into the face of a miracle, and then at his ankles as he about cut through his fingers ripping the wire open. He got one foot out and that was all he needed. Duct tape still bound around his mouth, he crept up behind the man and grabbed him by the back of his collar, jerking him back sideways with enough momentum to make him turn and face the wall. Before 'John' could react, Dick lifted his palm to better cup the back of his bald head and slammed it into a support beam.

The impact was a solid thud and had 'John' collapsing back onto the concrete. If the wood hit hadn't knocked him out, the hit to the concrete definitely did. Wasting little more time, Dick slipped his foot out of the remaining wire and pulled the utility belt from his shoe. He opened it and swung it on over his shoulders, taking the stairs three at a time. As he paused at the door, he pulled a scalpel from a pocket and cut the duct tape and the blindfold off in a quick jerk, leaving them on the stairs beneath him.

The lock on the door gave way fairly easy, and the carpet inside the house he had apparently been kept in the basement of made sneaking about pretty easy. Any sound that the floor would have made in protest was swallowed by the voice at the end of the hall, one-sided in a conversation that he couldn't hear the other half to. He didn't have to hear it to know that it was the partner talking to Bruce.

He undid his belt and pocketed it, secret identity springing fast in mind. Bruce was already going to be mad that it had taken him this long to escape. He didn't want to imagine how bad it would be if he found out that his identity had been discovered because of a little slip-up he could've easily prevented. Only then did he hurry after the voice, a part of him desperately hoping that the partner was using his phone because he really didn't want the police finding some of the pictures he had on that thing, and found himself staring into the kitchen doorway.

The partner noticed him, obvious by the frustrated swear he let out and the fear to hit his eyes, but Dick only found himself with a smirk.

"Mind putting that on speaker for me?" he asked, giving a cackle as the man threw the phone down on the counter and lunged at him.

Dick ducked the arms reaching his way and landed his elbow in the man's back, sending the man effectively sprawling with the punch he had to pivot in place to deliver. Using the downtime to his advantage, he ran into the kitchen and picked up the phone, relieved to see it was his, and put it to his ear.

"Hey, Bruce," he said nonchalantly.

The little relieved sigh on the other end was unexpected, but he loved it all the same.

"Took you long enough, Dick. Was afraid I was going to have to step in. You alright?"

"I'm going to have to put you on speaker," Dick said apologetically before doing so, setting the phone on the counter as the partner got to his feet again.

A quick look around the kitchen had him with a cookie jar in hand. He really would've preferred there be a vase- easier to break, lesser chance of actually killing someone, but no one ever kept vases around anymore. It was the one aspect of movie cliches that people had picked up on that was making his job that much harder. He could work with this, but a vase would've been so much more fun. In a split-second decision, he threw the jar at the man. It didn't shatter like he had wanted, but it looked like it had at least chipped, and he'd take that.

Charging the partner on the stagger, he had intended to catch the side of the man's jaw, but the man recovered a lot faster than he'd expected. Dick managed to throw up his arms to stop the punches from landing where they'd intended to land, back-peddling himself out of range. The man seemed to have the same idea to start chucking things- it was fair game, but it seemed a bit like copying, and Dick didn't trust himself to dodge whatever it was the man was going for.

"Can't you make up your own battle plan?" he called the man out.

The little head jerk was what he was relying on. In what was definitely a stupid move, he ran at the man and practically jumped on him. It wasn't hard enough to tackle him to the floor, but it landed Dick a solid grip on his shirt that helped him flip the broad shoulders and with the momentum of all of his weight- a good 135 pounds, he brought the man to the floor again.

"How close are you, Bruce? I've got some AP Chem work due tomorrow!" Dick shouted, hoping Bruce could still hear him on speaker.

He was so caught up in trying to hear an answer that he forgot that he was within arms reach of his captor. The man caught a hold of his leg and dragged him down, too. He hit with a little groan, suddenly reminded of his headache.

"Not this time," the partner growled when he tried scrambling out of the hold.

Dick managed to land a few good kicks, getting his shoulder and nearly his face, but the man moved fast enough to pin him for the most part, and Dick couldn't free his arms fast enough to defend himself from a few punches. They made his ears ring and world surge in his eyes, up until he remembered that he could probably lift this guy if he tried hard enough. Working his knees up, he managed to get them against the man's chest and he kicked hard.

He could definitely lift the guy. Trying hard wasn't necessary.

"Any time, Bruce!" he yelled to his phone a little impatiently.

His jaw felt like he needed to pop it, and he wasn't sure how long he'd be fighting steady with the pounding from the back of his skull. He didn't want to touch it in case it was worse than he thought, but he expected that he had a gash or something on the back of his head from the bat. Hopefully it wasn't out of Bruce or Alfred's skill range.

"Can't," the man got to his feet, seeming to be feeling the same stagger to an extent, breath in a pant, "call for your daddy forever. Gotta grow up sometime."

Dick pressed his teeth together with a little huff and glanced in at the kitchen towards his phone. He hoped it hadn't broke when he had set it down.

"Made it this far on my own, didn't I?" he spat a little sourly. "Your friend went down in a matter of seconds. You won't take too much longer."

The man's eyes flit to the basement door at the mention of his partner, a sudden rage seeming to consume him.

"How else did you think I got up here? I told him I needed to potty and he let me go?" he used as rude of an imitation voice as he could, and smirked at the reaction he was drawing. "Whoever did my restraints should look into getting a new hobby."

"You little..." the man murmured, and he charged at Dick.

He hadn't made it two steps before he hit the carpet with little more than a grunt. In his place stood Bruce, fist still clenched as he slowly lowered it back to his side.

"I've got the police chief on his way. You alright?" Bruce asked calmly.

Dick shook his head in disbelief. He didn't know whether to be angry or relieved.

"I could've taken care of him," he frowned, making his way into the kitchen to collect his phone.

His wallet was on the counter beside it, and he pocketed it right with his phone before rejoining Bruce.

"I think you're looking for a 'thank you'," Bruce offered, stepping over his ward's captor's body, hopefully just unconscious, and hugging him gently. "Or a 'good timing, Bruce'."

Dick couldn't help but smile and hug him back. He was thankful for the help, but he wished he'd been given the chance to finish it on his own.

"Back of your head's looking something nasty," Bruce commented as they pulled apart.

"They got me with a bat. Must've been waiting for me," Dick admitted, looking back at the man on the floor.

Bruce threw an arm around his shoulders and led them to the front door, still open from his apparent rush, making sure to get Dick out first, shutting the door behind them. He kept his arm around Dick all the way to the car where he paused and bent down a little to get a better look at the back of his head.

"You're coming to work with me tomorrow," Bruce decided, and then he opened the car door for his ward.

Dick looked at him in surprise, which slowly became confusion as he got into the car and Bruce shut the door for him. The man went around and got in the driver's seat, starting the drive back home.

"I'm alright, Bruce," Dick assured him, fastening his belt.

Bruce shot him a bat-look that he knew all too well and he stopped his protests, waiting quietly as Bruce picked up his phone to call the police chief.

"Yeah, chief, they're taken care of. Just get them in cuffs as fast as you can. Keep it quiet, please," there was a silence as the chief said something, and Bruce looked over at his passenger before turning his eyes back to the road. "He's got some bruises and cuts, but he's tougher than I give him credit for. They're both looking a lot worse than he is... Alright, yeah, I'll tell him. Goodbye."

Dick looked at him expectantly as he hung up, and Bruce nodded.

"Chief wanted me to tell you that he'd be proud to have you on the force one day," he relayed, giving a little smile.

Dick didn't return it. "Not that. You know I'm alright. Why am I coming with you tomorrow?"

The man stared at the road very pointedly.

"Is it that you don't think I can handle myself?" he asked quietly, and then slowly gained volume as his courage grew. "Because I would've taken care of that last guy even if you hadn't showed up! You've been out in the field with me for years now! You know what I'm capable of!"

Before he could any farther or get any angrier, Bruce raised three of his fingers from the steering wheel where the rest of them had tightened and Dick found himself going silent.

"I know you can handle yourself, Dick. You're overly capable," Bruce was just as quiet as Dick had been when he had started off, "but from experience, kidnappers usually call a lot sooner. I thought you had run away, or that I had... lost you."

Dick looked out to the road too, rubbing his elbow subconsciously. A little smile played on his lips and he kept it there.

"You go in about nine tomorrow, right?"

"Eight, actually."

"If you're cool with rolling in about 8:30, I'm in."

Bruce looked over at him and gave a little breathy laugh, rolling his eyes as he turned back.

"Maybe 8:15. We'll see."

-F.J. III