Chapter Text
Tim lurches back to the realm of consciousness vomiting seawater, the sole of someone’s boot pressing unforgivingly into his gut. He splutters incoherently before the pressure thankfully releases. Immediately he rolls onto his side to gasp and cough weakly, but when he raises his hand to wipe his mouth, pain shoots through it. It’s too loud around him, and the backdrop is a constant noise of people yelling and shouting, too much movement for his confused head to piece out the individual conversations.
“Well, lad, you done heaving up the rest of your stomach?” There’s a sincerely amused voice, and Tim cringes at the loudness hurting his ears and throbbing head. There's the successive response of a hearty round of laughter, all coarse, all rough, and Tim unwillingly opens his eyes to take in his new surroundings. He remembers gunfire, shouting, and the captain that he had bought passage from dying –
This time he all but sits up like a bolt of lightning, before a shock of pain lances through his dominant arm again. It gives out under his weight, unable to support him, and he collapses back onto the deck, gritting his teeth against the pain.
“Easy there, kid.” A large shadow stoops over him, blocking the dying rays of sunlight, and Tim stiffens when a calloused, blistered hand grips his shoulder, hauling him up. There’s a flash of a grin, the crisp scent of gunpowder and the salty brine of the sea, before the ever present gust of wind over sea and sails chills Tim through his soaked clothes and down to the bones.
“W-where am I?” he croaks. This isn’t the ship he’d bought passage on. He looks around frantically, ignoring the pain momentarily. With a sinking heart, he puts the pieces together, and looks up at the flag.
Oh, no. The red skull that’s feared in all seven seas stands proudly against the dying rays of sunset, the emblem a testament to the flotsam littering the ocean that was once Tim’s passage away from Gotham, floating oil-soaked wood still burning forlornly. Regaining some of his strength, Tim shoves away the person holding him up, stumbling a bit until his back hits the railing.
“Oho! Looks like this one didn’t appreciate you rescuing ‘im, Cap!” More raucous laughter, but it dies down quickly. Tim takes in the appearance of the man who had been holding him up. The man’s a vaguely familiar face he knows from wanted posters, and the way he shrewdly eyes Tim makes his throat go dry.
The posters really don’t do him justice.
Captain Jason Todd of the Outlaw pirates, gives him a lazy but leering smile before speaking. “If he knows what’s good for him, he will.” Tim can’t repress a shiver.
“Why’d you rescue me?” Little flashes of memory are returning to him; the pirates boarding the ship after the captain had refused to surrender, much to his crew’s horror, Tim’s attempted escape gone horribly wrong, the roiling waves tossing him about like a ragdoll – it’s beginning to come back to him now. The pirate captain only grins at him.
“I thought you were a woman,” he sneers, licking his lips as he assesses Tim, an eye traveling up and down his body approvingly. Tim’s eyes widen and he flushes in embarrassment and shame, and Captain Todd’s crew erupts in further laughter like broken records. “But, more importantly, who are you, lad?”
Tim doesn’t hesitate. “Tim. Tim Jackson,” he lies through his teeth. Captain Todd makes a show of nodding his head, tilting his head and humming.
“A strong name, that. Doesn’t quite fit someone of your stature, though.” Tim’s eyes narrow at the jab about his height. When the pirate takes another step closer, Tim edges away as well as he can, trying to maintain the same amount of distance between him and the most wanted man in the world. “However, it does beget the question, what was this doing on your person?” Jason smirks and dangles a familiar ring on a silver chain from his fingers. Tim’s heart sinks, a hand flying to his neck where the ring should have rested beneath his clothes. Jason continues blithely, “It’s a very fine piece of silver, I must say, and it does match the rest of your clothes; wouldn’t go with any of ours, I’m afraid. Still, I’m informed that’s the Drake crest, from Gotham herself, and I must ask, if you’re Tim Jackson, then are you a thief?”
Tim inhales sharply. His lie is transparent, and there’s no saving him now. “Go to hell,” he snaps. Jason’s eyes gleam, and then he bridges the gap between them in two steps in what would have taken Tim three. Tim gasps, eyes flying open when Jason squeezes his injured arm roughly, fingers hooking around his chin, forcing his face up to meet the pirate’s eyes.
“I’ll give ya a chance to take that back, kid,” breathes Captain Todd, his eyes stark like winter and hard as flint. “I saved your sorry arse in that water instead of leaving you to drown, and I expect to be thanked. Don’t you have any manners? You’re awfully rude for a rich boy.”
Tim struggles futilely, but the man’s eyes are cold and unforgiving, and this is a show of power, to establish the man’s authority in front of his crew. Tim knows that if he resists for much longer, the pirate won’t hesitate to make an example of him.
“I – I apologize,” gasps out Tim, when fingers begin to curl threateningly around his throat. “f-for saying that.”
Jason watches lazily through hooded eyes. The rest of the crew is ominously silent, watching the exchange. “And you’re about to apologize for being an ungrateful little shit, aren’t ya?”
Tim growls a little, but Jason’s fingers dig warningly into his pulse point just under the bone. The growl turns into a short hitch of breath. “I – I’m sorry for being an ungrateful shit,” Tim gasps out. “A- and thank–” Even though the man’s fingers relax just enough for him to suck in air, the words are still hard to get out. “y-you for not leaving me to drown.”
The fingers abandon his throat, leaving Tim to swallow for air desperately. Jason steps back, a slow, satisfied smile of approval gracing his rugged face. “Not bad, didn’t even have to be prompted for the last bit, rich boy,” he sneers. Turning around, his gaze scans over his crew briefly. “Men! We don’t want to be rude to our posh little rich boy, do we?” The condescending tone provokes laughter from the rest of the crew. “Let’s give him a taste of true hospitality! Roy, get him to the brig, and see that his arm gets treated. We wouldn’t want the pretty boy too bruised up, would we now?”
Tim closes his eyes against the howls of laughter, wishing desperately that he could wake up any second now. An arm even larger than Captain Todd’s grips his shoulder, anchoring him to his new reality. Tim manages to twist around, coming face to face with a chest belonging to a redhead who shoots him a wry grin.
“You heard the cap, runt. March.” The man, presumably Roy steers him below deck. Surrounded by mocking grins, Tim can only face forward, resigning himself to the mercy of Captain Jason Todd.