Work Text:
In hindsight, they probably should not have let Damian take the reins on contacting the erratically behaving Batmobile. But Robin is Batman's partner, Damian had argued, and as the current bearer of the name, establishing contact with Batman is my responsibility.
Mostly, Dick just wanted it to be a confidence building exercise. What's the harm? He'd thought. This is standard procedure, he'd assured himself.
When Bruce didn’t answer the voice call on the first ring, the assurance made way for a hint of doubt. When it went straight to voicemail, the doubt grew.
"Try again," Dick suggested.
"I know," Damian snapped.
The second time they called, it was rejected.
"Third time's a charm, that's what I always say," said Tim, already hacking into any satellites close to Bruce’s last known location.
"You would say that," said Jason, who was hanging around pretending he didn't care what happened to Bruce and doing a bad job of it.
Bruce’s hands were probably just busy. And he couldn’t use voice commands. Or some other explanation that they'd all laugh at, someday.
"Call him one more time, Damian."
Fortunately, the call was answered this time.
Unfortunately, it wasn't Bruce.
The face looking back at them from the dash cam face chat was not, in fact, Bruce. Or anyone Dick recognized. It did have some similar qualities that usually ended with Dick saying "You have a problem, Bruce," or "did you really need to adopt another kid?"
"Sorry for hanging up on you guys, this car has like a thousand buttons and none of them are labeled. It's alarmingly easy to accidentally turbo boost the car instead of answer the call—"
"Identify yourself," Damian said pointedly.
"Uh, hi, I'm Danny," said the adoption bait driving the Batmobile, sass levels matching ghost peppers on the scoville scale. "Batman's fine by the way, if you even care—"
Something exploded in the background as the speaker—Danny, apparently—swore and swerved around a corner.
"—or he is for now, but we're in a bit of a pickle."
"Where is Batman?" asked Damian.
"Backseat" —Danny jabbed his thumb behind him to underscore the point— "He's not unconscious but he can't drive—"
"What did you do to him?" Asked Jason.
"Me? I saved his ass is what I did. There I was, kidnapped by a billionaire—typical Tuesday stuff, you know how it is—so I was trying to make the most of things and destroy a bunch of projects when BATMAN drops from the ceiling, boots covered in ectoplasm" —Danny paused, cursing as he banked the steering wheel left and avoiding another explosion— "and he wouldn't leave me behind! I had it handled, but we were still hashing out the deets, so to speak, when Vlad comes in, mad about, and I quote, 'corporate espionage', which is hypocritical of him, really—"
Dick didn't catch the next thing Danny said, on account of something green flying through the window and attacking him. Danny didn’t seem surprised by this, just annoyed. He grabbed the green thing (still unidentifiable) by the scruff and threw it out the window literally. Without breaking the glass.
"Did you say Vlad?" asked Tim. "As in Vlad Masters?"
"So you have the misfortune of knowing him, too," said Danny, like he wasn't talking about one of the regular topper of the Forbes 200 list.
"Long story short," Danny continued, "I blew up the evil lab and got out of dodge with an injured Batman, you're all very welcome. Now, is there any way you could send, like, a jet? Maybe a helicopter? You guys have one of those, right?"
Dick was rarely speechless, and this was no exception. But he was, perhaps, reaching a state of speechless-adjacent.
How can someone say so much and reveal so little?
"Why do you need air transportation, Danny?" Dick cut in.
"Well, we're kind of in the middle of nowhere, and I figured you probably do all your medical stuff in house anyway, and he might need a blood transfusion—"
"Blood transfusion?" Damian hissed. "He's bleeding?"
"Uh, yeah?"
"You said he was fine!" Tim pointed out. Enthusiastically.
"He's fine-ish? He used something from his belt to stop the gushing, but I doubt it's a long-term solution based on what I know about medical stuff, though admittedly I learned most of it from Grey's Anatomy—"
"Danny, focus," tried Dick.
"Why is he bleeding?" Asked Jason.
Danny shrugged. "Didn't dodge the invisible vampire fast enough, I guess. I was dealing with the bomb at the time."
"Invisible—" Dick took a deep breath. "So it's a puncture wound?"
"More of a piercing slashing kind of deal? What's that?" He turned around and leaned into the backseat, apparently talking to Bruce. "He says it missed the femoral and renal arteries, but may have nicked his spleen? He estimates he has a couple hours until he—oh, I don't think I should tell them that over the phone, Batman—"
"What is it with this family and spleens," Tim mumbled.
Dick wished for a pillow to scream into, but there wasn't time for that kind of personal breakdown mid-crisis. He'd do it later. He already had the pillow selected in his mind (it was a Superman Squishmallow. Perfect for screaming into.)
"We are sending the Batjet to your location immediately—"
"Maybe send it close-ish?" Danny interrupted. "There's a bunch of mountains and trees and ghost-animal-homunculus—homunculi? You get it—"
"I really don't," Dick muttered to himself.
"Anyway, gotta go, this car is kind of a two-hands driving kind of deal, and my sister says distracted driving is a killer. But don't worry! I've never hit anything or been hit by anything in the three months I’ve been driving legally, and I only failed the driving test like, the first three times in this timeline. How do I hang up…this button? Nope. This one—oh, found the turbo jets, maybe this one—"
The last thing Dick saw was Bruce's gloved hand reaching forward to press the end call button.
"Alfred—"
"The Batjet is already ready for takeoff, Master Dick," said Alfred. "I do suggest you hurry, however, as Master Damian has already buckled himself into the pilot's seat."
Dick sighed. One way or another, he had a feeling this was going to end with, if not another brother, then another something. A good story, at least.