Chapter Text
“Good luck guys” came Oracle’s voice over the comm, “I’ll be signing off for the rest of the night.”
“Stay safe Babs-” said Spoiler, Batman’s growl of “names” cutting her off before she corrected herself. “Sorry, sorry. Stay safe Oracle” she fixed.
“You too,” Oracle responded, “and on that note, Hood gave me a message for the rest of you. Ahem, ‘don’t die to the Joker, that’s my thing’.”
“Ha ha ha, very funny” said Nightwing, not sounding amused in the slightest “Tell him we’ll be safe, and give him a hug.”
“I’ll certainly do one of those things” came the woman’s reply.
Because around four in the afternoon of the previous day, the Joker had escaped Arkham, and while he hadn’t made any moves yet, the act had caused mass panic throughout Gotham. It was now up to the Bats to stop him.
Due to their inadequacy (“trauma, Baby Bat, they were traumatized”), specific members of the team were removed from the patrol roster while the Joker was on the loose. Those of which being Gordon, Thomas, and Todd, having lost their legs, their parents, and their life to the Clown Prince of Crime respectively.
“We’ll be pairing up for patrol tonight” Father had said an hour before in the cave, “No one goes alone against the Joker. If you find him, call for backup immediately, do not engage.”
“Yes Father,” Damian had said dutifully.
Father had nodded at him then. “Patrol in pairs. Black Bat, you go with Nightwing, Robin and Red Robin will go together, and Spoiler, you’re with me.”
“Oh, come on!” said Brown, clearly upset, “At least send me with Tim!”
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you filled my utility belt with glitter.” The Incident with Bane a few weeks prior was not to be spoken of, lest you be blackmailed by Batman himself- with baby pictures.
Damian himself had walked across the Batcave to begin getting ready for patrol. He didn’t mind patrolling with Drake very much. Their relationship was certainly much better than what it had started out as, but neither of them had even begun to approach the topic of their shared time together before Father’s disappearance into the timestream. Damian desperately hoped for that conversation to take place later rather than sooner.
And so here they were, at the docks near Gotham’s (disgusting) harbor, searching for any evidence that the Joker might be in the vicinity.
“Hey, Dames, come look at this,” Red Robin said, waving the younger boy over to a small cluster of rusty metal barrels he was crouched by, piled just outside one of the numerous warehouses on the shore.
“Names” Damian responded, scowling slightly, but walked over to the other to see what he was trying to point out.
Red Robin rolled his eyes at the correction, but proceeded to rotate the barrel, revealing a bright green smiley face that had been spraypainted onto its side. “We have no idea how old that is” Damian pointed out, “It could have been from any of the clown’s previous escapades in the ar-” Damian cut himself off as Red Robin rubbed his thumb over the painted smile, the rubber-kevlar material of his glove coming back slightly green with the partial erasure of the awful artwork.
“Fresh” Red Robin said, shaking his head as he displayed the glove to the younger.
Well, now Damian just felt foolish for pointing it out, especially without testing. “Still” the boy stressed, “It could be from any of his gang members, or a random adolescent who decided this place needed to be-” he put air quotes here, mimicking a phrase he had heard from Brown a few weeks ago “-’spiced up’.”
There was a downturn to Red Robin’s lips as he considered this. “You're right,” said Red Robin, shaking his head as he stood to his full (and unimpressive) height of five feet and four inches, “Still, it’s the only lead we have so far.”
“Should we call in for backup?” Damian asked, unsure of the protocol for wayward speculation.
Red Robin seemed to consider this before shaking his head once more. “This is only a start. We need more evidence that he was at least in the area before we call in a full investigation, for the Bats or the Commissioner.”
“I can start by checking this warehouse” Red Robin continued, gesturing to the building the barrels were stacked against, pointing to the fire escape on the side of the building. “I’ll climb the fire escape and check through the skylight to see if anyone’s inside. If it’s empty, I’ll head inside to search for evidence, if I can see any people, I’ll call you in for backup, got it?”
“Alright” said Robin, nodding before asking, slightly nervous, “What shall I do, in the meantime?”
Red Robin waved to some of the nearby warehouses. “Search for any more marks of the Joker on any of the other warehouses. If you find anything, record the evidence then repeat standard procedure- fire escape, skylight, scope out, and search for more evidence. Don’t engage without backup.”
“Try not to leave a mile radius, we can meet back here in an hour” the older vigilante finished.
Damian nodded. “Mark the warehouses you go though, I will do the same” he responded, before turning and grappling away.
There was work to do.
-1 Hour Later-
At the designated time, Damian flicked his comm into the ‘on’ position and spoke to Red Robin. “I am returning to our meeting point, I expect you to do the same.” There was no response, which was interesting.
In most cases, Red Robin made a point to respond to comms whenever he was spoken to, even when it was inconvenient to the point that he should have just waited, including times when he was actively grappling, in the middle of a fight, or bleeding out (the second time this happened, Batman made a point to review comms procedure with the genius, who was more than idiotic when it came to minding his own health, the fool hadn’t told them he had lost his spleen for months).
The only times he didn’t respond were when he was unconscious, or particularly enamored with a case he was solving or a piece of evidence he had found. Damian desperately hoped his silence was due to the latter, and didn’t know what to think if it was the former.
Once he reached the meetup location, he waited for about thirty seconds before tapping his comm once again and saying “Red Robin, report to the meetup location before I-” and then Damian heard it.
A crackle.
A crackle that meant a broken comm.
“اللعنة” came to Damian’s mind immediately. Richard had cursed Todd for teaching Damian to swear, but Damian had considered that hypocritical.
Pulling up his wrist computer as quickly as possible, and subsequently Drake’s location, he noticed that it was just outside the mile radius the teen had set up himself.
“غبي” Damian thought, running to and starting Drake’s motorcycle.
Damian knew he wasn’t allowed to drive, and definitely not Drake’s precious Redbird, but, this was what he got for worrying Damian.
“I swear on my mother’s name, Drake, if you have somehow managed to injure yourself-” Damian muttered under his breath, uncaring of code names at the moment.
He stopped outside the warehouse where the Red Robin signal was pinging from, forgoing the fire escape going straight to picking the lock on the door before forcing the heavy metal open.
Since Damian was not an idiot, he was quiet as he searched around the warehouse. Once he deemed it empty of immediate enemies, he began his search for the older vigilante.
And then-
Blood.
Drake was there, on the floor, lying on his side as blood pooled down his neck, onto the cold concrete flood. Damian stood there, frozen for a few precious seconds as he watched the blood flow, before he ripped his cape from his back and pressed it to the wound, focusing to keep his hands from shaking. The slice would likely get infected due to the other’s lack of a spleen, but it would be better to be sick than dead-
Dead. Why didn’t he check for a pulse first? Lifting one hand from the cut on Timothy’s neck, he moved his hand to the side of the other’s throat, checking for a pulse. Damian let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding when he found it, but it was weak- too weak.
What now? “Backup” he remembered Batman saying, “When someone’s injured, always call for backup, even if you think you can handle it.” So, Damian reached up and touched the comm in his ear, keeping one hand down to apply pressure to Timothy’s wound.
And with a breath, he switched his comm frequency and said “This is Robin, requesting immediate assistance.”
A moment later- “Robin, we’re on our way, report” came Batman’s short reply
“W-we separated to investigate after finding traces for the Joker at the docks” Damian started, “Red Robin and I. We agreed to meet up after an hour. I attempted to contact him at the agreed upon time, but he wasn’t responding, so I went to the rendezvous point, b-but he wasn’t there-”
Why was Damian’s voice shaking? He was the heir to the Demon’s Head and the Bat! “Pull yourself together!” Damian thought to himself.
“After about a minute I attempted to contact him again, before realizing his comm had likely been broken, since I was getting a small amount of feedback” Damian continued, “I tracked his location to one of the other warehouses in the area, and I have found him-” Damian choked on his next breath “-but he has a laceration across the front of his neck. He has a pulse, but it’s weak.”
“I am applying pressure, but I am unsure of how long he had been bleeding for, however, the amount of blood on the floor suggests-” another breath “- not long. It is also likely he was conscious when he received the injury, as it appears that he managed to roll himself onto his side so as to not choke on his own blood.”
There was silence for a moment, two, then- “I’m on my way in the Batmobile, T-minus seven minutes, attempt to prepare for transport. Agent A, contact Leslie and ask her to prep a room.”
“Right away sir” came Pennyworth’s reply.
“Patrol ended early. Spoiler, Nightwing, Black Bat, go back to the cave” Batman continued.
“No” came Nightwing’s reply, “I’m going to the clinic.” It didn’t surprise Damian, he always did his best to be there for the others when they were injured, even when Todd called it “fucking annoying”.
“Yeah, I agree with ‘wing, hell to the fucking no-way am I going back to cave, we’ll meet you at the clinic” Spoiler gave her reply, Black Bat’s hum of agreement giving a soft buzz over comms.
“No” Batman says, then a sigh, “One of you can come to the clinic, decide between yourselves.”
“Dibs” came from the voices of Nightwing, Spoiler, and Black Bat at the same time, and Pennyworth was gracious enough to transfer Damian and his father to a separate frequency before they dissolved into pointless squabbles.
They knew well enough that Father would crumble under one look from Cain, the only reason they agreed to his terms was that Drake typically did not enjoy being crowded while recovering-
Drake, who was still sluggishly bleeding beneath Damian's cape. He reached his hand up to check the other’s pulse again. Still there, still too weak.
Some amount of time later, presumably seven to eight minutes after Damian initially called for backup, the Batmobile roared outside the old warehouse. Damian didn’t hear his Father’s silent footsteps, but felt when his shadow descended over him and Drake.
“Robin,” Batman said. Damain stayed silent, gazing down at Drake’s limp form.
“Robin,” he said again, placing his hand on Damian’s shoulder. The former assassin stands and steps to the side as his father’s hand slides away from his shoulder, and his arms instead slide beneath Red Robin’s body and lift the older boy up, turning away to run him to the Batmobile. Damian followed.
One of the back doors was already open, Father sliding the red-clad vigilante into the vehicle so he was lying across the seats. Damian maneuvered to the opposite side of the Batmobile and entered through the opposing opening. “I will continue applying pressure on the way to the clinic” Damian said, reaching to place his gloves over the bloodstained Robin cape covering the wound on Drake’s neck.
Batman nodded once, then ran to start the car. Not long after, they were speeding down the road to Leslie’s Thompkins clinic, breaking every possible speed limit. It wasn’t as if they didn’t already do it on the regular.
“Father” Domain asked, “will Dra-” Domain cut himself off before starting again “will Timothy... be okay?”
There was a squeak as Father’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, and silence overtook the Batmobile for minutes after.
“I don’t know” came a quiet reply.
It shouldn’t have gone like this.
It shouldn’t have gone like this.
But here they were, Timothy bleeding out from his neck, Father speeding down the roads in the Batmobile, and Damian hoping that it wasn't too late.