Word Count: 2273

Warnings: Kidnapping / Murder / Mob!au

I'm Safe (When I'm In Your Arms)

The silence was eerie. Tom wasn't used to it, especially these days. Harry was a naturally noisy person, even when he wasn't particularly doing anything, and so coming home to such silence was decidedly strange.

Of course, finding the living room had been ransacked was even stranger, and he stopped in the doorway for a long moment, eyeing the mess in front of him. Cabinets had been turned over, the sofa cushions were ruined—the stuffing was strewn over the floor like clouds.

Tables were smashed until they resembled bits of old wood scattered across the now stained carpet—and if those stains were actually Harry's blood, there would be hell to pay—and shards of glass littered the floor.

Whatever had happened here, it had been chaotic. Harry had clearly put up a good fight against his kidnappers. For Tom knew exactly who, and why, he just didn't know how.

Thankful that he was, in fact, quite level headed, Tom snapped the phone from his pocket and pressed the second number on his speed dial.

"Sir?"

"Harry has been kidnapped," Tom said, his tone tense. "I want him found, and I want to know which one of you fucking idiots let this happen."

"Yes, sir. I'll send Rabastan to the flat immediately and start looking at the cameras."

"Do it quickly, Lucius. My patience is not to be tested today."

Tom ended the call before Lucius could reply, and started looking around a little more closely. Slowly, he walked around the flat, room to room. The bedroom and the bathroom were untouched, as was the study, which meant that Harry had been the intended target.

Not that Tom ever kept anything important in the flat—except for Harry, of course. But his enemies didn't know that.

Returning to the living room, Tom was about to call Lucius to find out what the hold up was, when Rabastan stumbled into the room. He was panting, clearly having run from wherever he'd been, but Tom didn't have time to wait for him to catch his breath.

He wanted answers.

"It was the shift change," Rabastan managed to gasp out. "Grindelwald's people must have been watching the place for weeks to figure out the shift change on surveillance. There's about fifteen minutes in which the security is… weaker than it should be."

"Unacceptable," Tom snapped. "Who on earth made the schedule so predictable? And has Harry been found yet?"

"We believe that we know where he is," Rabastan replied immediately.

Tom realised that he hadn't answered the first question, but he could come back to that later, only Harry was safe and sound, and back in his arms.

"Is there a team retrieving him?"

Rabastan shook his head. "There's a team prepared, sir. We just need to know if you intend to go with them?"

Tom's eyes narrowed, and then he nodded. "Get someone here to clean the place up. I want it spotless by the time I return home. Harry doesn't need any reminders."

"Yes, sir."

…

Tom wasn't particularly afraid. He knew that he was stronger than Grindelwald; that his people were stronger than the others. Before this, Grindelwald had been a mere annoyance, but not enough of one for Tom to particularly care about getting rid of him.

That was, of course, no longer the case.

But no, Tom wasn't afraid of what Grindelwald could do to him. He was, however, perhaps a touch afraid of what the man would do to Harry, in an attempt to get to Tom.

It wasn't an unsound idea, unfortunately, and Tom had known that it was inevitable that, one day, someone would go after Harry when they couldn't touch Tom personally.

He'd been overconfident in his ability to protect his love; it was an oversight that wouldn't ever happen again.

The car pulled up close to the warehouse they believed that Harry was being held in, and Tom climbed out of the car.

Two of his men—Rosier, and Mulciber—were waiting for them.

Tom glanced their way, and Rosier nodded. "They're here."

That was all that Tom needed to know. He led the way forwards towards the doors, uninteresting in pausing to make plans for entry—or anymore talking at all, actually.

He had a knife up his sleeve, a gun on his hip, and his rage was fuelling him to keep his steps even and unaffected, even as his insides rolled.

His man walked behind him, following his lead. They were all armed to the teeth, and had been given the simple instruction that nobody on the other side was to come away from this breathing.

Tom was done playing nice.

…

Leaving the sounds of gunshots, fighting and shouting behind him, Tom walked through the warehouse to the main room. It was empty, except for two people; one seated, one standing.

Harry was tied to the chair with coarse looking rope, and even from the doorway, Tom could see the beads of blood where it was cutting into his skin. There were a few cuts on the bare skin Tom could see, and bruises were blossoming on his face.

Tom narrowed his eyes at the man standing behind him. He wore a half mask, though it did nothing to hide his identity, and he was holding a silver, serrated blade against Harry's neck.

"A little dramatic, no?" Tom asked, gesturing to the room. "If you wanted to speak to me, you could have just made an appointment."

Grindelwald smirked, and it grated Tom's nerves even further.

"Ah, men like us, we all like a little drama," the man replied, waving his free hand airily. "Besides, I thought you might like to admire my newest acquisition in an open space."

Tom glanced at Harry. He could see that the younger man was afraid, but he still seemed relaxed, as his eyes met Tom's.

"Are you okay?" Tom asked, his voice softening slightly as he addressed Harry.

"I'll live," Harry replied, with a small smile. The knife at his neck brushed a little harder against the skin when he spoke, and he winced slightly.

"That's the question, isn't it?" Grindelwald said, patting Harry on the head. "Because unless Mr Riddle gives me what I want, dear boy, I'm afraid that you won't live at all."

"And rather than speak to me, man to man, like respectable business men, you chose instead to abduct my lover," Tom said, his head tilting slightly. "I'm not entirely certain why you thought any of this would entice me to make a deal with you."

"I knew it," Grindelwald said, shaking his head as though disappointed. "You won't even converse with me when his life is at stake. You're not capable of love, are you, Mr Riddle? I don't know why you're attempting to keep up the pretence."

Tom arched a single eyebrow. "I'm capable of anything."

"So I've heard. Dear Albus, you know, he does so enjoy reminiscing."

Tom inwardly chafed at the mention of his once mentor. Albus Dumbledore had been the biggest disappointment of Tom's life. He'd once thought the man great, but it had all turned out to be a tower of lies that had tumbled to the ground when Tom was fifteen.

That had been when Tom had struck out on his own. He couldn't say that he was disappointed with the success that he'd managed on his own, but it still rankled to hear the old man's name.

"I'm not entirely sure what you're hoping to accomplish here, Gellert," Tom said, bored with the back and forth, and disliking the knife that seemed to be getting closer to cutting Harry's neck with every minute that passed. "Simplify it for me. What is it that you want?"

"I want London, of course," Grindelwald said. "Your organisation sweeps the length and breadth of the country. Surely you can spare little old London for me?"

"And if I say no?"

"Then I suppose that we'll find out exactly how sharp my knife is, won't we?"

Tom nodded thoughtfully, before he brought his gun up in one smooth movement and pressed his finger to the trigger. The bullet flew true, hitting exactly where Tom intended, in the shoulder of the arm that he was holding the knife.

The blade fell from his hand as he yelped, nicking Harry's neck as he dropped it.

"I'm okay," Harry assured Tom, as he approached with quick steps. "Deal with him."

Tom nodded and stepped around the chair to look down at Grindelwald, who'd fallen to the floor and was clutching his shoulder. Tom kicked his side, and then put his foot on the bullet-hit shoulder, over Grindelwald's hand.

"Did you really intend to kill my Harry," he asked, his voice low and fierce in the echoing warehouse.

"No, no, of course—"

"Tell me the truth!" Tom demanded, pressing his foot down.

Grindelwald cried out in pain, and then nodded his head. "Yes, yes, I was planning to kill him, please stop."

His voice was urgent, as he tried to escape the punishment of Tom's foot, but Tom didn't let up .

Tom nodded. "Unfortunately for you, I don't hold a grudge, I just kill the people who wrong me. It saves time, you see, to get rid of the vile scum that think they can hurt one of the few things that actually matter to me."

"Riddle, please," Grindelwald begged. "I'll leave forever, I'll—"

"You'll bleed out on this dirty warehouse floor, and I'll leave your body here to rot," Tom interrupted. "Then, perhaps your outside will match your insides. You chose the wrong one to mess with, Gellert, and that was your mistake."

Tom lifted his gun for a second time, and aimed it right at Grindelwald's chest. "Look away, Harry. You don't need to see this."

The gun fired for a second time, echoing through the room, and then Tom turned his attention to the ropes securing Harry to the chair. Using the knife from up his sleeve, Tom freed Harry from the bindings, and then stroked a gentle hand down the side of his face.

"Are you okay?"

"I just want to go home, Tom."

…

The sun was setting when Tom carried Harry from the warehouse to the waiting car. He set Harry carefully on the backseat and closed the door, before he rounded the car and climbed into the back on the other side.

"Do you require medical attention?" Tom asked, his tone soft. "Are there any injuries that I cannot see?"

"Just bruises, I think," Harry replied quietly. "Nothing feels broken. Pain meds wouldn't go amiss, though."

"I'll have some waiting for us at home," Tom assured him. The car started, and Tom pulled Harry close, so that he was pressed into Tom's side, Tom's arm securely around his shoulders, holding him in place.

"Sorry that the flat was such a mess," Harry said, his face pressed against Tom's shirt. "I just wanted to make sure that you knew that I'd been taken, that I hadn't just gone out somewhere willingly."

Tom smiled into Harry's hair. "Good boy. I knew as soon as I got home that something was wrong."

"It's a tragedy that the couch got ruined though," Harry mourned. "I loved that couch."

"Then I'll make sure that the replacement is exactly the same," Tom promised. "You were magnificent, Harry."

…

Harry tried to flop directly onto the bed when Tom helped him into the bedroom, but Tom held him upright with gentle but strong hands.

"Take your clothes off, right now," he said, a touch of an order to his tone. "I need to make sure that you're okay."

Harry wrinkled his nose, but nodded his head wearily. Tom helped him to strip, and when he saw the amount of bruises on his Harry, he felt a blast of fury shake him to his very core.

Had he known how bad it was, he would have made Grindelwald suffer, rather than just shoot him.

"It's fine, I'm fine," Harry said, clearly reading the emotions on Tom's face. "I promise."

Shaking his head in disbelief, Tom helped Harry to sit down on the edge of the bed, and then called Lucius to the room.

"Bring Narcissa here," he ordered. "I want her to look Harry over and make sure that there's nothing… untoward."

"Tom, I'm fine," Harry replied, clearly exhausted, even as he forced his tiredness away in an effort to assure Tom of his continued health.

"I… I need to make sure," Tom admitted, as Lucius left the room. "This is my fault, and I—"

"Hey," Harry murmured, reaching up a hand to cup Tom's cheek. "I knew who, and what, you were when we got together. It was inevitable that this would happen one day. Bruises suck, but they heal. I knew that you'd come and get me."

"I'll always come and get you, Harry," Tom promised. "And I'll do my best to ensure that this doesn't happen again."

Harry just nodded, fighting to keep his eyes open.

"Come and cuddle with me until Narcissa gets here," he requested softly. "The nightmares will come, and I always feel safer when I'm in your arms."

Tom simply nodded, and helped Harry get into bed properly, propping him on a mountain of pillows to ensure that he was comfortable. Tom lay along the side of the bed, stroking a hand through his hair.

"He was wrong, you know," Tom murmured, pressing the gentlest of kisses on Harry's shoulder. "I can love. I do love you."

Harry smiled softly, and without even bothering to open his eyes, he replied, "I know."