Archive of Our Own ^beta

White collar crime is rarely dangerous, but when it is, it’s usually nothing more than a gun pointed at his head or a knife swung inches from his skin. In short, it’s nothing he didn’t encounter every night in Gotham. 

He’s hardly ever in this much danger. Things change, though, and he’s surprised that he let someone best him. He got sloppy. Batman would be disappointed. Neal would be too, if only he cared about what Bruce thought. 

Peter is right beside him, tied up and blindfolded. Neal considers it his fault that Peter is in this situation with him. If Peter dies, it’s Neal’s failures that caused it. 

He’s too disoriented to track the car’s movements. The car trunk is too similar to a coffin, only this time, he doesn’t think a belt buckle will get him out of it.

The car comes to an abrupt stop, and Neal braces himself. Peter is still limp beside him, which he assumes means he’s unconscious. 

Hands grab his arms and he struggles. His hands and legs are tied together, which makes it much harder to get the leverage he needs to fight off his captors. They carry him somewhere, and he knows they’re inside when the air stills and the sounds of the city dampen. 

Neal hits the ground with a thud. He still can’t see. Their odds of getting out of this alive are drastically decreased if he can’t even see. He reaches up to claw the blindfold off and immediately wishes that he didn’t.

The familiarity of the situation causes his muscles to lock up. He knows how this one goes, but he can’t bring himself to move.

The bomb is ticking behind him, the sound something he remembers vividly from his nightmares. Peter is less than ten feet away, tied to a pole and watching him struggle to work his arms. He can’t do this. He needs Bru--

No. He can do this on his own.

He’d forgiven Bruce for not making it in time. That wasn’t his fault, and Neal knows that. He doesn’t hold it against him anymore, but that doesn’t mean that he has to allow this to happen a second time. Shelia hadn’t made it out, and part of Neal mourns her, but the other part of him is vengeful. That part of him is glad she’s gone.

Peter is different. Peter has never once betrayed his trust like his mother did. He doesn’t deserve this.

But Neal can’t move. His mind is stuck somewhere else. He hears maniacal cackling behind him and he whips around, each breath escaping in short huffs. There’s no one there. 

He has to be here. No one else knows the things that get to him like the clown does. He should’ve killed that monster when he had the chance. Damn Bruce and all the emotions he’d dredged up simply by being there.

Peter makes a sound under the tape and Neal looks up. Peter’s expression is a mixture of fear and concern. He thinks he’s going to die. If Neal doesn’t get a hold of himself, he might be right.

Neal’s hands are bound, but he thinks he can make his way over to the bomb. Disarming it is another matter, but he’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it. There’s three minutes left on the display. That’s plenty of time.

He reaches out and his fingertips brush the plastic casing of the timer. The ticking is getting to him, causing anger to spike in his chest. He doesn’t know if he can disarm the thing with his hands trembling like this. 

Neal had been trained by a detective. As a result, his mind is racing, trying desperately to figure out who might be responsible for this. It shouldn’t be a priority, but his brain is latching on to whatever it can to avoid thinking about how his body felt after each crowbar impact, broken and bloodied on the floor with an unrepenting madman looming above him. He still sees that crazed grin in his nightmares, inhumanly large and framed by blood red lips.

All he wants is to get Peter out of this, even if it means going to his grave for a second time.

“Panicking serves no purpose. It’s an empty, useless emotion.”

Not panicking is easier said than done, but compartmentalizing helps. His memories are what’s paralyzing him, not the presence of the bomb. All he has to do it forget. Push the bad, soul-rotting memories out, just for the time it will take to disarm the bomb. 

The bomb is a lazy pile of thermite and various wires. It’s not particularly well thought out. Definitely not him , then. At least he knows how to competently build a bomb. Some of the wires aren’t even attached in the right places, which helps him weed out the duds pretty easily.

Every bomb has a capacitor and a resistor, which help connect the timer to the detonator. All he has to do is disconnect the two, and he and Peter will avoid being blown to pieces. Simple.

Neal grabs one of the wires that he knows is live and pulls. It’s not an easy task with his hands tied together like they are, but he manages.

Except, when he disconnects the wire, the time goes from two and a half minutes down to one and a half. Neal groans. Peter makes a noise behind him and he turns around.

Peter’s eyes are blown wide, panic surging through him. Neal knows that look. He’s felt it many times throughout his life, and he’d be lying if he said that it wasn’t threatening to overtake him now. It would be so much easier to just sit back and let the time tick by. But he doesn’t want to die, and El is expecting Peter back at home, ideally in one piece.

If he’s honest, seeing Peter so afraid is more than a little disconcerting, but Neal can’t afford to be distracted. So Neal turns away from Peter, ignoring his frantic head shaking and examining the wires he hasn’t yet touched. 

There’s a thin black wire that looks like it’s the one he needs. If he’s wrong, it will blow the place to bits before anyone could process it. He has to try, though. No one knows that they’re here, so no help is coming. Neal is their only chance. He braces himself—not that it would help; it didn’t last time—and pulls.

When he realizes that he didn’t die, he opens his eyes. The timer stopped at forty seconds. Neal sighs.

He stands on shaky legs and pulls the tape off of Peter’s mouth. Immediately, Peter is scolding him, but he doesn’t listen. They’re alive. Neal isn’t going to his grave for a second time and Peter gets to go home. That’s the only thought going through his head as he collapses against a wall and tries to hide the tears running down his face.

Peter brings it up, but only once. His voice is timid, like he knows that the subject is a fragile one.

It takes a few days after the incident for Peter to build up the courage, but when he does, he walks up to Neal carefully. “Hey,” he says. “What happened?”

Neal knows exactly what he’s talking about, but h decides to play dumb. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He’s never been good at this stuff. “What?”

Peter gets this look on his face like it pains him to even think about elaborating. He doesn’t want to talk about it either. “In the warehouse. You freaked out.”

”I got us out, didn’t I?” he snaps. He doesn’t mean to, but when it comes to old wounds, he finds it hard not to react strongly.

Peter pulls back, eyes wide. “I didn’t--” he stops. “Look, if you ever want to talk--”

“I don’t.”

Peter looks wounded, and Neal hates himself for doing that to him. “Well, at least think about it. There are resources that you should take advantage of.” 

Neal refuses to respond. He doesn’t want to talk and he doesn’t want to say anything he’ll regret, either. He keeps his eyes firmly on the ground as Peter walks away. 

He needs to hit something. Luckily, there’s an unknown person out there who knows who he is and is willing to kill. It shouldn’t be too difficult to track them down. It’s what he does best, after all.