WARNING: LANGUAGE . . .
The sound of the lock being opened on the door sent a wave of panic through Elle. What if Dick was coming home for lunch? He didn't normally, but then Elle usually wasn't in his apartment at this time either. Normally, she would be at her apartment or at Chez' Donovan's for rehearsals.
Normally, she wasn't lying on his floor with her arm trapped in the heating vent after losing his fiancée's engagement ring in the ductwork.
Elle checked the time on her cell phone. Eleven-fifty. If it were her rescuer, then he made excellent time. But the roads were still a bit icy, and if it were him, then that meant he had risked speeding to get here fast. She was still fluctuating between outright panic and hope when the door opened.
"Elle?"
Oh, thank God!
"Over here," she called out, struggling to sound normal despite her situation.
Footsteps came closer . . . Wait! It sounded like he brought a friend. Terrific! Someone else to swear to secrecy.
"What the hell? What have you done to yourself, Hamilton?"
"Damian?" Elle tried to look behind her.
"Oh my God, Elle," Tim gasped. "Are you all right?"
She laughed. "If I were all right I wouldn't have had to call you! Now, if you two are done gawking at me, do you think you might help me get out of here?"
"How long have you been stuck?" Tim asked finally appearing by her side.
"I'd rather keep that to myself," she said. "This situation is humiliating enough without telling you how long I've been lying here contemplating the dust bunnies under your brother's bookshelf."
Damian squatted down on her other side. "How do you get yourself into these things, Hamilton?"
"What? Do you think things like this happen to me on a daily basis," Elle asked, defensively. "This is a unique situation, I'll have you know."
At the brothers' silence, she huffed.
"I promise you that this is the first time in my life I have ever got a body part stuck in a heating duct," Elle grumbled. "I hate to rush you, guys, but I kind of like to be out of here before your brother comes home . . . And maybe . . . I might need to go to the bathroom. Soon."
Tim's mouth tightened, and Elle knew he was trying not to laugh at her predicament.
"I guess I shouldn't have had that cup of coffee this morning."
A short bark of laughter erupted and just as quickly stopped. Tim rubbed his mouth. "I'm sorry, Elle."
"Don't be," she sighed. "I would have laughed in your position. I'd be laughing in my position except I really wasn't joking when I said I had to go. Can we pick up the pace here?"
"How did you get like this," Damian repeated as Tim began working her sweater around to see where she was hooked.
"I lost something down the vent," she explained reasonably.
"Have you tried to take the sweater off, Elle?" Tim asked.
She blinked. Oh God, no, she didn't. If it ended up really being that easy she would save Dick the trouble of killing her by doing the job herself.
"Um, no," she admitted weakly. "If you can turn around?"
Tim and Damian turned their backs as Elle struggled to pull her arm out of the sleeve.
"I can't believe I didn't think of this," she grumbled under her breath. "I am so stupid . . . Ow! Damn it! You guys didn't hear me say that!"
"Are you free yet," Tim asked politely.
"Ugh . . . No!" Elle grunted. "Ouch!"
Tim glanced over at Damian. The younger boy looked back with an odd expression on his face. If Tim didn't know better, he'd say Damian was struggling not to laugh either.
"This . . . isn't . . . fair," Elle groused. "Hold on. Let me just try this one . . . OW!"
The boys turned around at that last yelp. Elle collapsed in frustration and exhaustion. Her sweater was still mostly on, thankfully, with only her midriff showing. She sniffled, and Tim and Damian looked alarmed at the thought that Elle might cry.
"Maybe we should call the fire department," Tim suggested gently.
"NO," Elle yelled, then more softly. "No, no, we can't call 911. Dick will hear about it! He can't know!"
Tim sighed. "Why can't Dick know? What's going on, Elle? How did you do this?"
"I-I found something. I know I shouldn't have looked at it, but I couldn't help it. I was curious! I didn't think it would hurt to just have a little peek," she sniffled, embarrassed and ashamed.
Damian and Tim's heads shot up! Could she have discovered Dick's Nightwing uniform or weapons? Surely, he wouldn't have left Elle here unsupervised if there were any danger of her finding them!
"I was just so surprised . . . And shocked! I wasn't expecting that at all. It just kind of blindsided me," she whimpered. "I just reacted and I threw it in a bit of temper."
Tim gulped. What were they supposed to tell her? Wait! Threw it? What did she throw that could fall down the heating vent?
"Dick's going to kill me. He's not going to trust me anymore. He'll hate me," she moaned.
"Tt. Grayson won't hate you," Damian told her.
She swiveled to look at Damian. Her face was damp with tears. "Please. Please don't tell him! I'll put it back. I swear, I won't say a word, but neither can you two!"
"Damian's right, Elle. Dick won't hate you no matter what you found," Tim assured her.
"You've got to promise me neither of you will tell him about this," Elle demanded, turning to look at Tim next.
When neither of them agreed right away, Elle yelled at them. "Promise!"
"Promise," Damian spoke softly.
Tim sighed. "Promise."
"Okay," she said, calm once more. "Now get me out of here because I really need to pee."
Tim moved to her other side and tugged the edges of her sweater out of place so that he could see what was holding her tight. He picked up the flashlight next to her and peered down into the duct.
"What the . . . There is a piece of metal that is hanging you up. It's pretty thick, so that is why it won't bend and allow you to slip free. I'm going to have to cut your sleeve, though. Is that okay?" Tim explained.
"Yes, yes, I don't care about the sweater," Elle told him. "Just do it!"
Tim pulled a knife out of his hiking boot and the blade slid out silently when he thumbed a switch.
Holy Smokes! Tim carried around a switchblade? She peeked at Damian and remembered all that Dick had told her about his past. She wondered what kind of weapon he had on him. Damian stood up and as Tim bent to his work.
"You'd better hurry, Drake," Damian suddenly spoke.
"I'd kind of like to do this without amputating her arm in the process, Damian," Tim snarked. "I don't know why I bothered to bring you with me if you aren't going to help?"
"I'm helping," Damian insisted, "by telling you that Grayson is home!"
"What?!" Elle jerked and yelped as the sharp metal dug into her flesh once more. "He's early! He's not supposed to be home until three!"
"It is lunch time," Tim said logically as he stood up as well.
"Wait! Where are you going?" Elle tried to look up at them.
"I can barely see what I'm doing, Elle. I might be able to get you free in time, but what if I didn't? How do we explain how you got your arm stuck in the heating duct?" Tim spoke to her as he ran into Dick's bedroom.
"He's entering the building now, Drake! What are you doing?" Damian called.
Tim ran out of the bedroom with a large comforter and a box. He set the box on the table and then tossed the comforter over Elle's body.
"Curl up," he commanded.
Elle was obedient. What choice did she have?
"There is a black box on the kitchen table," she yelled through the thick material. "Hide it!"
There was a scramble of feet, a thump beside her, and then two heavy bodies leaning against her; squishing her up against the wall. She hissed at the pain the movement caused her, and then bit her lip to prevent more sounds from escaping. Then about thirty seconds of silence before there was a slide of a key in the lock.
Dick had been calling for the past couple of hours Elle's cell phone and his apartment phone with no answer. Everything just went to voicemail. If he hadn't been caught up with a multi-vehicle accident, he would have left in order to come home and check on her.
He had felt waves of numerous emotions that weren't coming from him. Anger, sadness, fear . . . The fear had been like an ocean wave of panic, and had threatened to send him to his knees. He had had panic attacks before; shortly after his parents had died, and a few times when he had first faced criminals the likes of Joker and Two-face, and after nightmares brought on by his many bad memories. This one had no rhyme nor reason to it. One minute he was doing his job, and the next he had been forced to sit down on the curb as he fought hyperventilation.
It had that feel of Elle to it, much like the time when she had interrupted that mugging. He had known it was her then and he did this time, too. Something had upset her and the severity of it had reached across the miles separating them and tried to strangle him by his throat. Then she refused to answer the phone . . .
Or else she couldn't!
No, he couldn't think like that. As soon as he had the opportunity, he promised the moon to his partner, Amy, to do the reports while he ran home for a family emergency. He had kept the squad car and used the lights and siren to cut his travel time in half. Despite his worry, he had hesitated when he had climbed out of the car. Bruce's Range Rover was parked a couple of spaces away.
He didn't know if he should be relieved or more worried than ever. Why was Bruce here? Why hadn't he called and told him that he was coming? If he couldn't call, at least he could have sent a text. Dick paused inside the building's entrance to check for messages and texts, but found nothing.
Perhaps more confused than before, Dick ran up the stairs; taking two at a time. He was unsure if he might need his gun or not. He unsnapped the safety strap, but left it in its holster. The door was locked. He couldn't label his emotions about that anymore, and just took out his keys to let himself in.
He needed to figure out what the hell was going on!
At first he didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Then he noticed his junk drawer was practically dumped onto the kitchen table and countertops. What had she been looking for? Had she found it? Why didn't she clean up after herself? It was odd that Elle would leave a mess . . . She wasn't exactly a neat freak, but this was definitely out of character for her.
"Elle? Where are you? Are you okay?" Dick had one hand on his holster. He moved to the bedroom.
"Hey, Dick! You're home early!"
Dick spun about and saw Tim and Damian on the floor playing . . . Taboo? He blinked. What was that they were laying on? It was his comforter, but it was wadded up into a lump that his brothers were lounging on.
"Grayson," Damian nodded to him and then continued to hand out clues to Tim; practically ignoring Dick in favor of the game.
"Where's Elle? And Bruce for that matter?" Were they together?
"Bruce is home. He let me borrow the Rover to drive over here," Tim said, casually.
"And you two came together? Why?" These two couldn't be in a room together without another person to referee. "And where's Elle?" He repeated.
"Two words, Grayson," Damian sighed.
Dick waited.
"Game night," Tim answered.
Frustrated, Dick threw up his hands and headed into the bedroom. That wasn't the question he wanted answered first.
"Elle? Baby, are you in here?"
Dick checked the bathroom and stood staring at the bed. There were a pile of t-shirts and jeans lying there. She had been doing laundry that morning when he had left. He hadn't done his own laundry in a week, except taking care of his uniforms; both his police uniform and his Nightwing costume. Even so, he didn't have so much that he would have kept her busy all morning.
He hadn't told her he would be home for lunch, but neither had she told him she was going out. Her car was still in the shop, and would likely remain there indefinitely. If she went anyplace, it would have to be by cab or by foot. His neighborhood wasn't one he would feel comfortable letting Elle walk alone in, even at . . . He checked the clock beside the bed; twelve-eighteen in the afternoon. Especially not with Elle's luck lately.
Walking back into the living room, he eyed his brothers suspiciously. They knew something . . . They knew something and they were purposely acting obtuse. Why?
"Okay," he said, crossing his arms. "Spill it! Where's Elle?"
"She's not here," Damian announced, not looking at him.
Dick gritted his teeth. His gaze pinned Tim to the floor. "Where is she?"
Tim glanced up from his card with the list of Taboo words. "Out."
Dick took two steps forward, his hands curling into fists.
"Out! She's out!" Tim leaned back and held his hands up defensively. "I don't know where she went. She didn't say."
"She went to the grocery store, Grayson. Chill out!" Damian said. His voice remained calm, but his eyes said something else.
"The grocery store? She went shopping with me two days ago! Let's try this again; only tell me the truth this time." Dick took another step closer to his two younger brothers.
Damian scrambled into a sitting position. "She said she forgot something," he insisted.
"What, then? What did she forget," Dick challenged.
"Sauce," Tim inserted quickly.
Dick growled. "I thought you said she didn't tell you where she went?"
"I heard her mention she didn't have the sauce she wanted," Tim said. "For that Italian meal she said she was going to make. I didn't hear her leave."
"My apartment is two fucking rooms! How could you not hear her leave?" Dick yelled; his temper lost.
"Bathroom," Damian said. "Drake was in the bathroom when she left."
Dick marched into the kitchen and opened a cupboard. In it was the generic jar of spaghetti sauce that he had bought months back before he started dating an Italian singer, and beside it were all the ingredients that Elle needed to make whatever kind of sauce she wanted. He spun around, unholstered his weapon, and stalked back toward his uninvited guests. He laid the weapon on the table. Worry for his girlfriend consuming him, Dick decided he would beat the information he needed out of them.
"She doesn't buy sauce," he told them; allowing his anger to color his words. "She makes the sauce! And we already have everything she needs right here in the cabinet. We can do this the hard way if you insist. It's your choice!"
Tim's eyes widened in alarm. Damian jumped to his feet and placed himself between his two older brothers. He held out his arms as if he had any hope of stopping the train that was bearing down on him.
"All I know is she said she was missing something she needed for the dinner she was making tonight. She told us to chill out here and she'd be back in a little while. That's all we know, I swear, Grayson! You need to calm the hell down," Damian blurted out a little desperately.
"Language," Dick muttered at the boy.
Damian snorted. "Like you didn't just drop the F-bomb seconds ago . . ." he muttered under his breath.
Dick looked back at Tim, who was gaping at him; his face pale. "Why didn't you drive her?"
"She said she wanted to walk," Tim told him.
Dick looked back at Elle's shoes and her coat draped neatly over a chair.
"She wore one of yours," Damian said, catching ahold of Dick's waist as he swept past. "She said it was warmer . . . And, and that it smelled like you! Something stupid and sappy like that!"
Dick paused, glancing down at the boy. That did sound like something Elle would say . . . But how would she walk anywhere without her boots? He looked back at the boots stacked neatly beside his.
"Tennis shoes," Damian blurted, already seeing where Dick's thoughts were taking him.
"Why are you acting so crazy, Grayson? What's gotten into you?" Damian asked. "You never threatened us before?"
Dick blinked. No, he didn't. He was the calm one. He looked at his brothers, guilty. "I'm sorry," he said, finally. "You're right. But I felt Elle's panic earlier. She was running a gauntlet of emotions and then she wasn't answering the phone. What was I supposed to think?"
"S-she seemed fine when we got here, Dick," Tim offered. "She didn't mention anything was upsetting her."
Dick rubbed his hand over his face and glanced back over at the mess in the kitchen. That was his clue, he thought. Elle didn't make messes, and when she did, she cleaned them up quickly. But this time, she had left one.
Maybe it was as his brothers told him, and she planned to clean this up when she returned, but this was so unlike her; a very un-Elle thing to do. He moved to the table, and swept a hand over the myriad of items there. She was looking for something, he thought, but she couldn't find it. He picked up a butter knife, frowning. The tip of it was bent. What had she been doing?
A screwdriver! The thought came to him instantly. She was needing a screwdriver. He found a discarded Phillipshead screwdriver on the table near it. Whatever it was required a flathead screwdriver, he determined, but Dick had needed it last time in the bathroom and had just tossed it in the drawer in the bathroom rather than bringing it back out here.
He might have believed the story about the screwdriver more easily than the one his brothers told of the sauce for one of Elle's Italian dishes. Would Elle have lied to them about why she needed to go out? She might have, but not without reason. Why would she lie to them about a screwdriver?
He still had the feeling that Elle needed him. He couldn't shake the idea that she was upset about something. His eyes swept over the items again, this time settling on the one thing that was out of place. A small box . . . Like one might get at a jewelry store . . .
His breath caught. He picked it up, but already knew it was empty. The velvet box that was kept inside was gone. He ran to the bedroom and yanked open his sock drawer. It wasn't there! Of course, it wasn't there! He was holding one part of it in his hand!
He had spent the better part of the past year staring at that damned ring and wallowing in self-pity; afraid to move on with his life. Since finding Elle, he hadn't thought about it; hadn't taken it out once. Barbara had crossed his mind once or twice since meeting Elle, but only briefly and he had immediately moved on rather than brood. How could he possibly brood over a love lost when he was staring at a love so much greater than any that had come before it? A love that would gaze back at him with just as much adoration as he felt for her.
But what was she feeling now?
He stopped and focused. Fear? Sadness? Yes. She was afraid. She was upset. And now Dick knew why . . .
He should have told Babs to keep the damned ring! He should have sold it or hocked it. He should have done a lot of things, but the one thing he shouldn't have done was keep it. Elle wouldn't leave him, he knew; not completely. The bond wouldn't let her, but when he thought about seeing her only once a week for the rest of his life from across the infinite expanse of a dinner table with no hope of crossing it; his chest felt hollow.
Perhaps she was wandering the streets now lost in thought; believing wrongly that he still harbored feelings for a past girlfriend. He cared for Babs still, sure, but nothing that would ever threaten what he and Elle had between them. Being the son of a billionaire, Dick had learned the difference between a cubic zirconia and a genuine diamond long ago. Sure, the cubic zirconia had sparkled prettily, but when placed beside the beauty of a perfect diamond; it lost its appeal and looked flat, its previous brilliance gone.
If Elle were out walking the street in this frame of mind, she might not be aware of the dangers around her. Gotham's criminal set were mostly restricted to the dark hours, but Bludhaven's underworld didn't restrict itself to the sewers in daytime hours. Its riffraff often walked the streets doing its harm in broad daylight.
He ran out to the living room and stormed over to the table for his gun. He wasn't Nightwing at the moment. He was Officer Grayson, and as such, he carried his service weapon. He holstered it, barely giving his brothers a glance.
"I'm going out," he snapped. "If Elle comes back while I'm gone, have her call me immediately!" He pinned them with a glare. "Do you understand me? Immediately!"
Tim gulped, still sitting in the same spot on his comforter; the game abandoned between them. "Yes, sir."
"If she calls, you will tell her to come home. No stops, no side trips, no distractions," he said firmly. "She's to come straight home. And then you will call me – immediately! Got it?"
The boys were gaping at him. They nodded silently.
He turned away and practically ripped the door from its hinges; slamming it behind him as he took off running back to his patrol car. He could put an APB out on her, but wasn't sure he wouldn't get into trouble for using the department's resources for personal reasons. He would cruise the area first, and if he didn't see her in an hour, he would put out the APB, his job be damned! Like hell would he wait the required twenty-four hours it took to file a missing persons' report.
"He's gone," Damian assured his brother. "I can't believe he fell for that."
Tim uncovered Elle. He grimaced when he saw the tears on her face.
"He knows," she murmured.
"He doesn't know or he wouldn't have left," Tim told her.
"He knows enough," she said.
"Nothing matters right now except getting you unstuck," Tim said. He moved around her into his previous position. "You can worry about it later. Damian, grab that flashlight and hold it for me so I can see what I'm doing."
He slid the switchblade back out of his boot, thumbed it open, and set to work. It was a matter of minutes before the sleeve was removed. Her arm was still wedged in and he and Damian slathered her arm in olive oil and helped her to ease it out. He winced at the scrapes and the small cuts she had gotten trying to get herself loose. He hoped that none of them were from him, however. He had been careful, but accidents happened.
"Are any of these from me," he asked, indicating the nicks that were oozing tiny trickles of blood.
Elle looked at them carelessly. "No."
"We need to clean them. That duct was filthy," he told her.
She looked back at the hole in the floor. "I need to get the ring out."
"What ring," Damian asked, kneeling down and peering in the hole with his flashlight.
"Dick's ring," she said. "The one I was trying to retrieve when I got my arm stuck. The one that belongs in that velvet box you rescued from the table."
Tim pulled the velvet box from his pocket. He set it back on the table.
"Maybe I can reach the ring," Damian announced. "My arm is smaller than yours."
"It is also shorter than hers," Tim told him. "If Elle couldn't reach it, then neither will you."
"I'll get the vacuum cleaner," Elle said. Her bathroom needs were forgotten temporarily. "I should have used it in the first place, but didn't think of it in my initial panic."
Five minutes later, Damian crowed, holding up the dusty, but none the worse for wear, diamond engagement ring. Elle packaged up the remnants of the vacuum cleaner bag to throw away. She placed a hand towel in the sink before she washed it off. They had just rescued the damned thing from the heating duct; she didn't feel like having to play plumber if she managed to drop it down the drain while attempting to clean it over the sink.
She set the ring in its velvet bed and closed the lid. A couple of minutes search found the ring's outer box sitting atop the dresser and Dick's sock drawer opened.
Oh, yes, she thought. He knew that she knew now.
Elle placed the case back in the box and covered it with its lid. Almost reverently, Elle replaced it back into Dick's sock drawer where she had found it and slid the drawer closed. She moved through the apartment picking up the mess she had made, and then putting the comforter away.
"He won't hate you."
Elle turned around to find Damian standing behind her. She sat on the edge of the bed. She didn't answer him. What could she say?
"Elle," Damian used her first name for the first time. "He won't hate you! He's grateful to you."
She blinked at that. "For what? Breaking his trust?"
"For saving him from himself," the eleven year old told her. "She wasn't the right one for him," he said, looking in the direction of the sock drawer. "She never was. We all knew it, but it took you to help him to see it."
Elle smiled, and brushed a hand over the boy's hair affectionately. Damian's eyes closed briefly, as if savoring the touch, and her smile widened. He was such a little contradiction. He played at being tough and pretended he didn't need anyone, but he needed his family more than he knew, and he craved affection even as he continued to blow it off.
She pulled him into a hug. Damian stiffened for all of thirty seconds before 'just going with it' as Dick had told him. Elle took advantage and squeezed him a little tighter; even rocking him side to side a bit. The boy's arms slid hesitantly around her after a minute, and Elle sighed, content for the moment.
"Thank you, Damian," she said. She glanced up to where Tim stood silently in the doorway; his mouth agape at the taming of the little savage. "Thank you both."
Slowly, she released Damian and grinned at both of them. "I think I owe you both a dinner and a game night."
Tim nodded, and stepped in to hand her her cell phone. "Great," he said. "But right after you call Dick, and tell him you're home safe and sound."
REACTIONS?
Sorry this took so long . . . My schedule is being interrupted by very young family members in visiting for the month. ;D
Hope you enjoyed this! Like I said, "Angsty and Funny" at the same time.