Chapter Text
Sometimes Tim really hates being Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne. Particularly how kidnappable he is. This is his second time being held hostage this month. The first time was another run-in with the wannabe three stooges Jason keeps ‘saving’ him from, much to Tim’s absolute annoyance.
At least this time the guys aren’t morons. Most people would probably think getting kidnapped by smarter, more professional men would be a bad thing, but it helps Tim’s ego. Someone decided he was worth more than the idiots found on Craigslist.
There are seven thugs in the room, all of whom Tim doesn’t recognize. They’re pretty much the standard model of men-for-hire you see in the movies: bullet-proof vests, black gloves, shaved or cropped hair, AKs in hand, complete with black sunglasses.
Tim immediately knows they’re not from Gotham. He can just tell after years of fighting crime in this city, as well as going around the world for YJ and his little mission to get Bruce back.
It might also be the fact that they’re courteous enough to let him sit in his nice expensive chair instead of a cheap shitty one or on the floor. They’re not here to kill, they’re here to get something, money most likely. Anyone who kidnaps Bruce Wayne and Timothy Drake-Wayne at Wayne Enterprises in the middle of the day is out for money.
One of the men, the one who seems like he’s in charge, picks up the phone on Tim’s desk and nods towards Bruce and Tim, who are tied up side-by-side in front of the window. They were even so kind as to let Bruce sit in one of the comfortable chairs that normally sit on the other side of Tim’s desk. Well, if you count shoving him on it and hog-tying him to it before pushing the chair next to the window kind.
At the nod, two of the men step forward to point their guns at Bruce and Tim. Another gets out a phone and points it at the duo, clearly making a ransom video. It’s weird, he’s using a literal iPhone in what will be a highly publicized kidnapping.
“Here’s what is going to happen,” The man in charge says, voice low and gravelly. “You are going to give me a phone number to call to get ransom money. Mateo over here is setting up a direct line to the news so everyone knows this is legit, and in case you try anything funny with the number. We will be getting our money.
“You two will sit quietly and we won’t shoot you. This is a standard hostage situation, we have no desire to kill you unless you provoke us. Don’t even think about trying some daring escape, my men are on every floor and are surrounding the building. There are hostages all over the building who are expendable should you not comply.
“And don’t think you can wait us out and have your precious police come and save you, everyone knows Gotham is corrupt. Hell, I’m sure if they get offered a cut of the money, they’ll back off." That’s concerningly not completely untrue. Gordon is, of course, not corrupt, and there’s a vetting program in place for new officers, but still, if Tim had to guess, he’d say about 3 in every 10 would set down their guns the second there was money on the table and another 1 or 2 after a little convincing. It is, after all, Gotham.
“Now give me a number, and we’ll get this show on the road.”
Bruce looks over at the man with the camera. “So, you’re live-streaming us to the news?”
“Will be once you say the number. We find the threat of guns in the face of loved ones offers motivation. And the news stations love the attention, their viewing count goes up, so they won’t cut the feed.”
“What’s going to happen once you get the money?” Bruce asks. It seems to Tim that Bruce is already stalling for time. Surely the news is broadcasting the situation by now, and someone will be on their way shortly.
It helps that Gotham keeps to herself. Everyone knows about Batman, but not everyone knows about his associates. Babs does cleanup on the media every night to scrub every trace of them from public places. Gothamites know of their existence, of course, but the rest of the world is willfully ignorant unless they hear by word of mouth.
The man shrugs. “We let you go. Like I said, we don’t want to kill you. It would be a pain in the ass to deal with. You are both highly publicized and your deaths could not be easily covered up.”
Bruce pretends to think for a moment. “Alright.” He rattles off the number for the manor. Tim hopes Alfred doesn’t pick up. It would be better if one of his siblings did instead, they can talk in circles and buy more time before they come kicking in the window. As long as they’re not too annoying and cause this whole thing to go sideways.
The man punches in the number and nods to Mateo, the iPhone guy. “We’re on,” Mateo says.
Great, now this is going to be in the public domain forever. Tim stops himself from rolling his eyes and continues to sit there like a good little hostage. He doesn’t even feel threatened. Sure, a dude has an AK barrel two feet from his head, but they’ve already admitted they’re not trigger-happy. Which is really the smart thing anyway, the man really was right about the highly publicized thing. They’d be hunted to the ends of the earth if Bruce or Tim were killed on live TV.
The man puts the receiver down on the desk, the speaker facing up. It’s on speakerphone. Clearly, they want the call audio in their little livestream.
“Hello?” A voice says from the speaker. Tim nearly groans at that. Jason. At least it’s clear he’s on the way by the obvious sounds of him riding a motorcycle. He must have rewired the call to come to him when he saw the news. It's one of the many contingencies they have in place, get information while on the way. Tim and Bruce share a look but dutifully keep silent. “Who is this?”
“I have Bruce Wayne and Timothy Wayne held at gunpoint.”
Jason huffs. "Well, that’s not very nice. You didn’t say hello.”
Tim can’t hold back his eye roll this time.
The man looks down at the receiver, baffled for a second. “I said I have Bruce and Timothy Wayne held at gunpoint.”
“Yeah, I heard you, which kidnapping is a big no-no, didn’t your daddy ever teach you that?”
“Who is this?!” The man demands, angry now.
“Jason. Who are you?”
“Jason Todd-Wayne,” Mateo supplies. “One of the Wayne boys.”
The head honcho takes a breath. “Well, Jason, don’t worry about who I am, and worry about your brother and father. You will transfer 100 million dollars, or you’ll be an orphan in twenty minutes.”
“Already am one buddy. Besides, do you even know how finances work? There isn’t a bank account with that ridiculous sum of money sitting around that I have access to. Just because ol’ Brucie is a billionaire doesn’t mean he’s got hundreds of millions just chilling somewhere. It’s called investments and assets.”
The man looks about ready to start shooting them just because Jason’s annoying him. “Then put someone on the phone who has access before I lose my patience.” The man draws every word out slowly, like he’s talking to an idiot.
“Sorry, no can do, evil kidnapping sir. I’m driving and everyone knows you can’t use your phone and drive. A little Bluetooth is okay, but hands-on is just not safe.”
“Oh my God,” Tim mutters and looks over at Bruce with a is-this-guy-serious look on his face. Bruce just sighs and shakes his head.
“Pull over and look at the news feed. I’m going to shoot your brother in the leg now if you don’t start doing what I ask.” The man walks over to Tim and points his gun at Tim’s kneecap.
“Seriously?” Tim gapes. “It’s not my fault he’s annoying!”
“It’s not personal.”
“Hey man,” Jason says, followed by the screech of tires caused by taking a turn at high speeds. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. You do realize you kidnapped the only two in the family with access to any money, right? Do your job better. If you shoot Tim, he’ll get too grouchy to help your evil little mission.”
“Jason is right,” Bruce speaks up, not taking his eyes off of the gun leveled at his son. Of course, they both still have an AK each pointing somewhere around their heads, but this one feels a whole lot more threatening as the man holding it is angry. “He has no access to anything as high as what you want.”
The man jabs the barrel into Tim’s pant leg. “Then why did you give me his number? I told you to be good, and nothing would happen.”
“I didn’t give you Jason’s number, I gave you the number to the manor. That’s what you asked for.”
“What I asked for was a way to get ransom money.” The man’s eye twitches behind his sunglasses.
“Well, you could have just asked us for the money,” Bruce points out.
“Jesus, does being annoying run in the family?”
“We’re adopted,” Tim adds helpfully.
The man heaves the world’s biggest sigh. Some of the other thugs look vaguely amused.
“Hey, evil kidnapper,” Jason’s voice says. “I just got to the drive-thru, so I’m going to have to let you go. Hope you can get what you want!” The call disconnects. He better fucking be here now.
“Is he serious?” The man yells in pure exasperation. “Does he not care for his family?”
“Nothing gets in the way between him and a burger,” Tim admits. “Besides, this is Gotham, people get kidnapped all the time. It’s not exactly a crazy occurrence.”
The man pinches the bridge of his nose. “Fine, whatever. You,” he points at Bruce, “will get me the money I’m asking for, or I’ll blow your son’s kneecap off.”
Tim sighs. “Well, at least I won’t have to go to my meeting.”
“What’s it about?” Bruce asks, conversationally.
“Finances ironically.”
Bruce winces. “Yikes, I always fell asleep during those, they’re painfully boring.”
“Tell me about it.”
The man shoots his gun, his bullet going through the chair next to Tim’s leg. “Enough.”
Tim frowns at him. “Can you warn me before you shoot next time? I have sensitive ears, and that’s really loud.”
Mateo, the camera guy, lets out a chuckle. Head Honcho glares hard at him. “Sorry, boss,” He says, trying to pull himself together. “This is the stupidest ransom I’ve ever been a part of.” The guys still standing next to Bruce and Tim voice their agreement.
The man taps his fingers on the back of Tim’s chair. “Fine, let's try something new. Since no one wants to take this seriously, I’ll start shooting random employees every time I get a stupid answer. Preston, go drag someone in here.” A man in front of the door leaves. “Let’s see how funny you find this now.”
While they’re waiting for some poor innocent WE employee to get dragged into this mess, the man pulls out a device and shoves it at Bruce. “Wire the money.”
Bruce looks down at the ropes holding him in place and then at the man. “Can’t I use my hands?”
The man nods to the thug watching over Bruce. The thug takes out a knife and cuts Bruce’s rope. “Wire it now, and no one will get hurt.”
Bruce takes the device, looking discreetly at the iPhone to see that it’s still recording. He and Tim can’t get themselves out of this mess on live TV. “I hope you know Jason wasn’t lying. Having one bank account with that many millions in it is stupid. To get the sum you want, I’d have to drain many accounts, and for that, I need approval from the banks. It’s a security concern.”
The man nods to the camera. “They can see exactly what’s going on, they’ll approve it if they want you to keep breathing.”
“Tim, do you remember the password for the Chase account?” Bruce asks, a confused frown on his lips. Tim knows it’s an act, Bruce remembers everything. He’s trying to get Tim out of his rope. They’ll fight if they have to, but seriously, someone should be here soon. Like Jason. Where the hell is Jason? As annoying as it is to have Jason save him, he'd rather that happen than have this annoying man take out his kneecap. He'd rather not lose another part of his body, thank you.
“Hmm, I think so,” Tim says slowly, pursing his lips in thought. “It’s more of a muscle memory kind of thing.” He turns to the man. “It’s the account I use to buy my energy drinks online. They have great bulk sales.”
Bruce shakes his head. “Tim, we had this conversation about using bank cards online.”
“I thought we were talking about the Chase card with the flowers on it? Everyone uses that one to buy stuff, it’s the designated online card. Damian bought a thousand dollars of Legos from China last week.” Tim’s locked into stall mode now, seeing how much bullshit he can get away with saying before Head Honcho loses it. Besides, this is all true anyway.
“Why is he buying Legos from China?”
Tim shrugs. “He says they’re better quality and ship faster than if you buy them from LEGO’s website.”
“Please tell me he didn’t accidentally buy something from the black market again.”
“No, I’m pretty sure it was Toys-R-Us.”
“I thought those went out of business?” The thug next to Bruce speaks up.
“They still exist in China,” Tim replies. The man nods. “If you have a kid, I’d highly recommend. Pretty good quality toys. They even have a kidult section.”
“Thank you,” The thug says, sincerely. “My daughter has been looking for this certain Barbie for—”
“Enough,” Head Honcho yells. The thug slams his mouth shut. “Get. Me. Money. Before. Bullets. Hit. Skin.”
“Alright, I’m trying,” Bruce huffs. “I have people who take care of finances for me. I don’t log into my accounts every day. It might take a minute to remember my passwords.”
Just then, the glass window to the left of Tim shatters. Finally, Tim thinks with annoyance. The response time is horrible. It’s only been about ten minutes since the live feed hit the news, but still, geez. The men started taking over the building almost half an hour ago.
The thug next to Tim goes flying into the wall across the room and slumps unconscious. The thugs start shooting before lowering their guns when they realize something. “Superman?” One of them yells in shock.
Sure enough, a whirlwind of blue and red assaults Tim’s eyes as the Earth’s Kryptonian protector walks in front of him. Well, that was unexpected. If anything, he would have thought—
“Hey, beautiful,” A voice says into his ear as Tim’s ropes fall away. “Having fun?”
Tim dips his head back to see Kon smirking down at him. It's completely inappropriate timing, but Tim's heart starts racing at how handsome his boyfriend is. He'll never get enough of seeing Kon in leather. It's sinful. “Yeah, having a grand ol’ time," He jokes.
“Drop your weapons,” Superman commands the thugs.
“Shoot them!” Head Honcho yells.
“But you can’t shoot Superman!” Mateo argues.
“Shoot the other one then!”
“You can’t shoot Superboy either!”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Try it and see,” Kon goads, moving from behind Tim to stand next to Head Honcho with his arms spread. “Go on, I dare you.”
The man shoots, and the bullet bounces harmlessly off of Kon. Kon grabs the gun, it wilts satisfyingly under his strength, rendering it unusable. He drops it and knocks the man out cold. Meanwhile, Clark plucks the phone out of Mateo’s hand and ends the live recording, smashing it for good measure.
“This doesn’t have to be painful,” He reasons.
The man next to Bruce puts down his gun and raises his hands. “Hey, man, I don’t want any trouble.”
Kon walks over to him, anger pouring out of every cell in his body. He doesn’t take well to Tim being threatened, particularly when Tim is in his civilian identity and can’t really defend himself (well, he totally could, but it would be hard to explain, which makes him not do it). “You should have thought about that before you took up a career in hostage holding.” He moves to hurt the man, but Tim stops him.
“Hey, Superboy, he’s cool.”
“Yeah, man. This was supposed to be my last gig. Christmas is in a couple of months. Have you seen the economy lately?”
“The cost of living has gone up,” Clark agrees.
Bruce sighs and stands up, smoothing out his slacks. “Thank you for the rescue, Superman,” He says with that flirty twinkle in his eyes he always levels at Clark Kent whenever he gets sent by The Daily Planet to cover something the Wayne kids get up to.
(Along with his normal pieces, Clark is their sort of personal reporter when needed. He’s the only reporter who is objective in his articles about the family, other people seem to drag the kids any chance they get, so Bruce requested Clark’s attendance at the press conference the family’s PR team made them have whenever Damian showed up and was recognized as Bruce’s kid. Clark reporting them just became a thing after that. Bruce might be paying Perry to send him, Tim isn’t fully certain, he could look through bank statements, but he's never cared that much about it.)
“Hello, Mr. Wayne,” Clark smiles, his face a little red. The whole family knows he’s got a little thing for Bruce, even Bruce. And they all know Bruce is too damn stubborn to act on his own feelings, which Tim finds incredibly stupid. Look, he totally gets the hesitation of not knowing if someone likes you back, but damnit he knows and still does nothing. “Are you alright?”
“Not doing too bad now that you’re here.”
Kon makes an annoyed noise. “What the hell am I? Where’s my thank you?”
Bruce narrows his eyes at him. “You’re a punk.”
Kon throws up his arms in exasperation. Tim snorts.
Clark tilts his head in confusion at the interaction. “Mr. Wayne, you know Superboy?”
“Unfortunately,” Bruce mutters.
Before anyone can elaborate, the office door is kicked in, and Red Hood stands in the frame, two guns out and pointing at the men around them. Jason doesn’t wait to see that everyone seems to be cool with each other, he pistol whips one of the men by the door, causing them all to snap into action. There was really nothing they could do against Superman and Superboy without Kryptonite, but they give as good as they can get when a human enters the room.
Robin follows Red Hood in, katana out and slashing angrily. Damian’s a little territorial.
“Is that Red Hood?” Superman asks, baffled. “Is he part of the kidnapping?” He moves forward as if to apprehend him.
Kon stops him. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but don’t touch him. He’s here to help.”
“He’s on the JLA’s most wanted list.”
“Not anymore!” Jason calls, knocking the last guy out. Even the cool one and Mateo are down. “You should really check that more often.”
A dark figure enters the room. When Tim sees who it is, he has to hold in a laugh. “The building is secure,” Batman says. Bruce sighs deeply and rubs a hand against his face. Batman’s mouth quirks before he can help it, but he quickly pulls himself together. His voice is extra deep because Dick’s not great at pitch matching. “Orphan, Spoiler, and Signal have released the hostages and are helping the GCPD drag out the guns-for-hire.” He turns and stops when he sees Clark and Kon. Clark stares at him in confusion.
“What are you two doing in here?” Dick demands, doing his best Annoyed-Batman Voice. “No Metas in Gotham, you know the rules.”
Jason snorts.
Clark frowns. “Batman, what’s wrong with your voice?”
“Yeah, did you hit another puberty or something?” Kon adds, just to piss Bruce off.
“I’m…under the weather.”
Damian shakes his head, looking at Dick, his favorite brother, with a lip curl.
Clark looks baffled at this point. “Alright,” He says slowly and nods in Jason's direction. “I know Gotham is your city, so perhaps you can enlighten me as to Red Hood’s status.”
Tim doesn’t have to see Dick’s eyes to know that they light up at the question. Jason broke one of his escrima sticks a couple of weeks ago, and even though it's been fixed for some time, he’s been waiting to get the perfect revenge. “He is still on the most wanted list.”
Clark immediately starts towards Jason, who protests with his hands out in front of him while walking backwards. Bruce opens his mouth to try to de-escalate the situation, but Dick speaks first, apparently having grown a conscience in the last couple of seconds. “Wait, I was kidding!” He says, in his voice.
Clark changes course and has Dick up against the wall by his throat in a second flat. “Who are you?!” He demands.
“Good going, moron,” Jason comments.
“That was supremely stupid,” Damian agrees.
“Wait, Superman! I’m Nightwing! I’m filling in for Batman as he’s…unavailable currently.”
Clark’s grip relaxes only slightly. “Nightwing?”
“He doesn’t know who that is,” Jason says. “You’re irrelevant, Dickface.”
“I know who the hero Nightwing is,” Clark corrects. “Give me a reason to believe you are telling the truth.”
“The name came from a Kryptonian legend you told me back in my Robin days!”
Clark lets go, and Dick slumps down a little, rubbing his throat. “Robin?”
“Yeah, I was the first Robin.” He smiles, something that looks supremely unnatural under the cowl. “Hey, Uncle Clark, long time no see.”
Tim facepalms. “Nightwing, Bruce and I don’t know Superman’s name,” He grits out tersely. This whole thing is stupid. This whole day is stupid.
“Oops,” Dick whispers.
“Surely you shouldn’t be revealing the status of Batman in front of civilians?” Kon adds with a grin.
“Double oops.”
“Oh my God,” Tim mutters, shaking his head.
“This whole thing is really weird and slightly confusing!” Dick protests.
“You’re supposed to be here to save me and Tim,” Bruce provides, looking thoroughly unamused.
“Yeah,” Jason adds, walking over to Tim, a grin evident even with his voice modulator. “Timbo needs saving again. What is it? The third time this week?” He ruffles Tim’s hair.
“Shut up!” Tim shoves him off, giving him a nasty look.
“Aw, someone’s angry. At least it wasn’t the Three Musketeers again.” He laughs loudly, and Tim shoves him again with a scowl. He always gets the most of Jason's shit. They moved on from Jason trying to kill him and hating his guts to Jason teasing him every chance he gets. Tim thinks it's some sort of psychological need for control and deep-rooted need to prove to himself that he's better than Tim, the replacement, even if he doesn't consciously realize it. But what does Tim know? He's not a therapist, he's a high school dropout.
Or maybe he's looking at the situation with his usual levels of overthinking, and Jason's just being a normal older brother, giving him shit because that's what siblings do.
“Yes, Drake is extremely susceptible to getting captured by idiots,” Damian adds.
“It’s his face,” Kon says, wrapping his arms around Tim from behind. Clark just about blanches at the sight. “No one can resist how pretty he is.”
“Get your hands off of my son,” Bruce demands, glaring at Kon. “You little punk.”
Kon just grins harder and holds Tim tighter. “Bruce, it’s fine,” Tim says, lacing his fingers with Kon’s and leaning back into his chest.
“Disgusting,” Damian scowls.
“Oh, don’t you start!” Tim shoots back, knowing damn well Damian gets all flustered around a certain tiny Kent.
Jason laughs. “Yeah, demon child, you really can’t speak.”
“What does that mean?” Clark asks.
Bruce drags his hand down his face. He’s not acting very Brucie Wayne-y, Tim thinks, just aggravated.
“Hey!” Steph calls as she walks into the room, followed by Cass and Duke. “All clear!”
Jason motions down to the men knocked out on the floor. “Can you take them?”
“No way! We just cleared out the whole building, we are not doing them too.” Steph crosses her arms and glares at Jason. “Hey, wait, what is Superman doing here?”
“And Superboy!” Kon adds.
“Well, that’s not exactly a surprise, Kon.” She motions to where he’s still holding Tim.
“Well, Superman and I were having lunch when all of a sudden the news started reporting about a hostage situation at Wayne Enterprises and some absolute, dumb, moron named Jason Todd–”
“Hey!” Jason cuts him off.
Kon ignores him. “—was trying his best to get Tim shot, so I decided to come help. And Superman followed.”
“I understand Batman has a rule about metas in Gotham and thought it best to come along to monitor,” Clark explains.
“Ha, he’s your babysitter,” Jason mocks.
“Aw, that’s adorable,” Dick adds with a smile. Clark looks a little disturbed at the sight of Batman smiling like that.
“O says the press is trying to enter the building,” Cass speaks up, a hand to her ear. “They want a sighting of the Waynes.”
“Oh, the fun part, the walk out.” Jason laughs. Tim really hates it when he laughs with the modulator, it’s unnecessarily creepy. “I want to lead Timbuktu out so he can publicly thank me for saving him again.”
“You didn’t save him, I did!” Kon argues.
“Yeah, Hood, I’m not going anywhere with you,” Tim agrees, leaning further into Kon's warmth. When Tim met Kon, he assumed he would feel like a rock if he ever touched him. He doesn't. He feels like your everyday buff guy, skin still feeling soft, thankfully allowing moments like this to not hurt his back. It's a paradox he can't help but be grateful for. And he's loved testing the boundaries of Kon's invulnerability/TTK over the years.
“I’ll take Bruce out,” Dick says. “That’s the point of me wearing this thing anyway.”
Bruce frowns. “What?”
Kon snorts. “Haven’t you seen the news? Apparently, you’re boning Batman.”
Dick nods. “Yeah, Agent A and I thought it would be a good idea to have Batman here.” It's not a terrible idea. After all, Batman having a connection to WE cannot be denied, as he exclusively uses Wayne Tech, and every few months, rumors spread all over again as to what that connection is. The media thinking Bruce is dating Batman is way better than figuring out the truth. Something like this, Batman saving the life of his 'beloved', will go over great with people online. But,
Tim groans. “Damn it, ‘Wing, Bruce and I don’t know who Agent A is!”
Dick’s face falls. “Oh.” He scratches the back of his head.
“This is so stupid,” Stephanie says. Duke nods behind her.
“For once, I agree with Brown,” Damian says.
“Oh my God!” Tim gasps out, genuinely appalled by how dumb his family is being. Like yes, Tim and Bruce obviously know who they are, and they’re used to talking to them about cape business in civies, and yes, Kon knows who they are, but Clark doesn’t, sure he’s Superman and he’s not going to rat out their identities if he finds out, but damn, they need to get it together.
“Enough, everyone,” Bruce snaps, in the Batman Tone. Clark’s head whips over towards him. Bruce sighs at this. “Nightwing, were you seen entering the building?”
“Yes, I entered through a window on the second floor in view of a couple of camera guys. I wanted publicity without it being obvious.”
“Is your ridiculous plan working?”
“O, what’s the media look like on Batman and Bruce?” It’s quiet for a moment while Babs responds on the coms. Dick snorts. “Yeah, it’s working. In fact, there’s speculation that you and Tim’s exits are being delayed because you’re thanking Batman.”
“Yikes,” Tim mumbles. Jason cracks up, and Kon laughs into Tim’s neck.
Bruce calls their attention back to him. “Everyone, listen. Here is what's going to happen. Hood, Nightwing, Spoiler, and Robin are going to exit the building through that window,” He points to the one Clark broke. “And go back to the cave. Superman, I would like you to follow them, it’s clear we have some discussing to do.” Clark’s eyes widen and he nods. “Orphan and Signal are going to walk Tim and me out of the building, then you are going to grapple away once we are out. Tim and I will give our press answers and take a car back to the Cave, where we will discuss how to keep our mouths shut and not reveal anything to others.”
Dick flinches at that last sentence. He’s in trouble.
“What about me?” Kon asks.
“Go away?”
“B!" Tim scolds. “Stop being rude to Kon!”
Bruce tilts his head back to look at the ceiling and lets out a long sigh. “Fine. The boytoy can follow Clark. Now move.”
No one needed to be told twice. Grapplers are fired out of the window, and Clark takes off without another word, used to following Batman’s orders in the field. Kon detours for a moment to kiss Tim and whisper in his ear that he's happy he is okay before ignoring the glare being leveled at him by one severely annoyed father and takes off after the others.
The remaining four make their way through the building, stopping only once to direct some officers to the unconscious men in Tim’s office, as Cass and Duke can’t carry all of them without multiple trips, and it would be weird if someone catches Tim and Bruce helping.
Once outside of the building, the press immediately swarm Tim and Bruce. Cass and Duke stay for less than a minute, just to show that they were still there, before grappling out of sight. It’s not a surprise to Tim that Bruce chose these two to accompany them, even though they were likely on national TV. Since they helped get the hostages out and round up the bad guys, one of the hundred cameras outside most likely caught a glimpse of them, and out of the two and Steph, who helped them, they were the two least likely to cause a scene, accidental or not. And everyone else was up very, very high in the building with no media coverage, even if some of their entrances were caught.
It was also a sort of 'don't fuck with Bruce Wayne and Timothy Drake Wayne, they have vigilantes on their side' kind of move. One that Tim's not opposed to. Since this thing was all over national news, Oracle can't scrub it all away, so they might as well put it to use. Tim's really tired of being kidnapped.
“Are you alright, Tim?” Bruce asks once they go through their little PR motions that come after being kidnapped publicly, and are deposited in the back of a car.
Tim looks over at him in surprise. “Yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?”
Bruce frowns. “Tim, you had two guns pointed at you at the same time, it would be normal for you to be a little freaked out.”
Tim snorts. “B, we both know I’ve been through tougher situations.”
“Yes, but not much as a civilian. You couldn’t do anything to protect yourself. For a moment, I was very worried he would actually shoot you.”
“Well, if he had, that would have been Jason’s fault, not yours.”
Bruce lays a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “I’m your father, I’m supposed to protect you. It would have been my fault.”
Tim’s gaze softens a bit under the affection. He’s not a kid sitting alone in a big house anymore, but he still gets a little weird around affection and casual touches with his family, particularly Bruce, since Bruce is his parental figure. “I’m alright, B, truthfully.”
With a small smile on his face, Bruce shakes his head a little. “I guess you’re already better at the hostage thing than I was at the beginning. It used to scare me.”
It’s no surprise, especially if there had been guns involved, Tim thought. Bruce had seen his parents get shot in front of him after all. “Well, here’s to a meeting-free day. I would still go, but I doubt anyone else would show up.”
“If they have any sort of self-preservation, they’d run home and far away from finance talk.”
Tim smiles at his mentor. “Yeah. And here’s to finally telling Clark.”
Bruce groans and drops his head back onto the headrest.
“It’s about time,” Tim prompts.
“Shut it, kid.”
Tim laughs as the car pulls into the Manor.