#being mutated with a human would probably make it less easy to stay underwater that long though. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

badacts · 5 years

Text

waterlogged

There’s nothing more unpleasant than patrol in the rain.

It’s dangerous - everything is slippery, from their gloves to the concrete and tile rooflines that serve as their highway. Visibility is terrible. No matter how waterproof their costumes are, everything leaks at least a little bit with enough rain. And cold bodies and cold brains are twice as likely to make a mistake in a fight.

Tim, perched in the lee of probably the ugliest concrete window surround in Gotham, curls his cape around him and sniffs sullenly. He’s overlooking the pitch-dark waters of Gotham harbour and the docks, and he’s miserable about it.

There’s nothing happening down on ground level. Even the people being paid to work are shuffling back and forth in wet-weather gear, hunched and well inside the spotlit areas. However, there were reports of a smuggling handover taking place here tonight, so here he is.

He’s not sure what. Best case scenario is drugs or stolen goods. Weapons aren’t too bad, except the people guarding them tend to be better armed than your average thug. The worst is always human trafficking: Tim has cracked open enough shipping containers full of dehydrated, hungry, frightened people without adding another tonight.

Of course, just as he’s debating that, there’s a small commotion in the shadows near one of the dark warehouses. Tim turns his attention to it, flicking over the array in his lenses to thermals as he does. It shows him three figures, the middle-most of which seems to be being frogmarched towards the water. They look unconscious, or at least restrained.

He’s already moving when light catches off the smooth dome of a familiar helmet.

Chances that the smuggling tonight involved human trafficking have gone up, if Red Hood is involved.

Tim swings across to the next roof, bolts over it, and then hurls himself down towards the water to land on one of the wharves. The two men have hauled their burden halfway along, and are debating in muttered voices with no idea that he’s coming up fast behind them.

“Here’s fine,” one of them hisses.

“’S not deep enough,” the other replies. “This is Red Hood. You wanna half-ass it?”

“Stop,” Tim says in his Red Robin voice, and they freeze. “Let him go.”

Unfortunately, at least one of them isn’t as stupid as they look, trying to get rid of a Gotham vigilante by tossing him in what can’t be more than twenty feet of water. He takes one look at Tim, and then, in one mighty heave, shoves Jason away from himself and into the water.

Then both of them turn on him, draw guns, and start firing.

Tim would like to hurl the both of them into the harbour after Jason, weapons and all. However, he has priorities, and the top of that list is not dealing with Bruce if he lets Jason drown. He leaps off of the wharf, puncturing the water in a smooth dive amidst a veritable hail of bullets.

Underneath, everything is muffled, even the gunshots. It’s dark and he’s loathe to give away his position by turning a light on, so he relies on feel rather than sight as he swims forwards. Jason is mostly muscle, so it’s not surprising Tim’s fingers hit leather closer to the harbour floor than to the surface.

Winding an arm around Jason’s chest, Tim pushes for the surface with his legs and remaining arm. For a moment, underwater, it feels easy - it’s only when he breaks the surface underneath the wharf that he realises that he’s possibly in trouble.

He’s a strong swimmer, of course. However, the water is choppy with the wind, and it’s hard to keep Jason’s head above the surface as well as his own. He curses until he realises it’s letting too much dank water into his mouth - oh god, he’s going to mutate into Killer Croc’s skinnier brother.

He has a rebreather in his belt, but if he grabs for it the choice is to let go of Jason or stop swimming, and neither of those is great options. Also, there’s still the odd bullet hitting the water, because apparently these idiots being terrible shots isn’t a good reason for their boss to not give them plenty of ammunition to not hit things with.

Just as Tim’s contemplating his poor life choices, Jason jerks in his very professional life-saving hold and regains consciousness fighting.

They both go under immediately. Tim pushes Jason away from him in the black murk, and barely catches sight of the silvery flash of a knife before it hits him.

He surfaces, Jason doing the same just outside of arm’s reach. Tim sputters, “Fuck! It’s me!”

“Red?” Jason asks, shaking his still-masked head. The thing has got to be at least a quarter full of water, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it.

“Yeah. You know, your brother?” Tim says. Jason is swimming pretty well for someone who is either drugged or concussed, but Tim is keeping a close eye on him even so. If he has to go under for a third time tonight, he’s staying down there. By choice.

“I know who you are,” Jason mutters.

“Jason,” Tim says, “You stabbed me.”

“Fuck. Did I?”

“You didn’t get through my armour,” Tim admits, “But still.”

“Thank god,” Jason says, with a degree of relief that doesn’t make sense until he continues, “Imagine what you’d turn into if you got this water in your bloodstream.”

“I hate you,” Tim mumbles. There’s yet another gunshot above them, this one fired through the wharf and into the water less than six feet from Tim. “Shit!”

“Fecking hell,” Jason says. “C’mon, baby bird. Start swimming. We’ve got a creepy human auction to stop.”

#whumptober2019 #altno.12 #batwhump2k19 #my fic #this is barely whump tbh #batfam #tim drake #jason todd #and then they save some people and go for hot chocolate after #once they've had six showers each

104 notes · View notes