#don’t worry i’ll also draw one with ness asap

[ganbaria-art]

Psychic pals!

[redrobinfection]

(11) Stormy Night

SociallyAwkwardFox’s Spooktober - Day 11 “Stormy Night”

Dick & Tim | Gen | Inclement weather | Injury | Angst | Fluff  | Brotherly bonding | Want to write with me? Find the prompt list here!

AN: this is set during Tim’s 90s Robin run, and the scene is set accordingly: This is a Gotham before the wide use of cellphones or cell networks. B and his cohort use early cell phones and satellite phones, but you better believe those were pretty unreliable in extreme weather conditions. This is the map of Gotham I refer to when I write.

~*~

"N-twing, this- Ag--t A. Do-- copy?"

"Hey, A, I can hear you but you're breaking up," Dick called back over the comms. "Hey, can you hear me? Interference from the storm is breaking you up."

For the moment Nightwing was huddled into the sheltered eave of a municipal building. The thunder and lightning that would have demanded he stay close to the ground and under cover had long since passed, but rain was still coming down in stinging sheets and the wind came in such strong gusts that made it hard on to swing from building to building. ‘Twas a dark and stormy night, indeed.

"I repeat, Ni---, do you--? This is --- A?"

Dick sighed and left cover in hopes of getting better signal out in the open. "I can hear you, Agent A. Go ahead."

"Thank heavens. I was start- to think I'd nev- reach you."

"Yeah, the storm is still causing a bit of interference, but I can hear you. What's up?"

"We've lost all contact wi-- Robin. It's been almost an ----- you check up on him? Last we heard, he was down in the Upper West Side, along the usual rou--"

Dick frowned. "Hey, lost you there for a second. How long did you say? On his usual route, you said?"

"An hour and yes," Alfred replied. Even through the crackling connection Dick could hear the elderly man's worry. An hour was a long time for one of them to fall out of contact on a night like this. Especially a 14-year-old Robin patrolling solo while Batman is in Europe. Now Dick was very glad he had agreed to come back to Gotham while Bruce was away.

"Have you or Oracle activated his tracers? Any clues as to where I should start looking?"

"Oracle and I lost contact aroun- ---time. We activated trackers in the suit and -- mask but--"

"I'm sorry, A, please repeat." Dick bit his lip. At this rate he was going to lose radio contact with the Cave too.

"No ping from any trackers. Oracle's surveillance grid partially knocked out. No eyes on Robin or clues to last location," Alfred enunciated slowly and loudly over the line to cut across the static and breakage.

Dick grimaced and began pulling his gear out in preparation to fly. "Copy that, Agent A. I'm on my way now."

"Th-nk --ness."

"We may lose contact as I enter Tim's area. If that happens I'll find a payphone and give you a call as soon as I find him," Dick reassured him.

"Very good. Good luck, Night--"

---

Twenty minutes later, Dick pulled the Batmobile into a shadowy corner of the Upper West Side. He was lucky that he'd almost made it back to where he'd left it that night---up by Gotham U--by the time the storm had peaked in intensity and forced him to take shelter. Remote call to bring the car was great, but only if you had the uninterrupted signal to make the call. It was also fortunate that Gotham U was just across the Finger River from the Upper West side.

Dick hopped out and began tracing Batman and Robin's patrol route, starting at the bridge on the north side. Tim would have been coming up from the South, so hopefully he'd find him somewhere in between and soon.

After thirty minutes of swinging with no sign of Robin anywhere, he was starting to worry. He'd lost contact with Alfred-- far off in the Cave at Wayne Manor to the northeast--but the Clocktower was just one burrough over, and they were having no trouble hearing each other. If Tim was in the area, then he should definitely be in range of Oracle, too. He was just about to ask Babs to try Tim's trackers or  check her surveillance cameras one more time when a flash of green on a rooftop caught his eye.

He swooped down onto the rooftop and felt a matching swoop of relief in his gut as he confirmed that it was indeed Robin, partially tucked away between an air conditioning unit and a roof access stairway, but he felt a new zing of worry as he approached. Robin was slumped against the air conditioner, legs splayed, and seemingly oblivious to Nightwing's approach. Unconscious? Maybe worse?

Dick crouched down just out of kicking distance and called out to him while looking for obvious signs of injury or the telltale dark stains of blood pooling on the rooftop.

"Robin? Robin! If you're awake, answer me."

Dick breathed a sigh of relief as Tim groaned and shifted.

"D-dick? 'S-s-s about time."

Dick smiled. "Yeah, it's me. Names, T."

"S-s-sorry," Tim chattered back. Dick noted as he drew closer that Tim’s lips were starting to turn blue with the cold, and he began searching Tim’s body in earnest for injuries. He carefully tapped the side of Tim's face then slowly peeled off the mask.

"You hurt anywhere, T?"

Tim groaned and pulled himself up further against the wall. "Ankle. An’ m-my head."

Dick whipped out a mini pen light and shone it into Tim's eyes. The boy hissed and turned away. "Why'd you stop answering Oracle and Agent A's calls, T? Did you pass out?"

Tim shook his head, then groaned and lifted a gauntleted hand to his forehead. "No, and stop that! I have a minor concussion and I twisted my ankle, that's all."

"And you're turning blue with the cold, don't forget that," Dick reminded him cheekily.

"Yeah, well, this rain is freezing and my suit is soaked. You'd turn blue too, if you were me. More blue than you already are, at least," he teased weakly, shakily gesturing to the fingerstripes.

Dick chuckled and waggled his fingers playfully. "Okay, if that’s so, then why did you drop under the radar? Why didn't you activate your emergency beacon?"

Tim gaped at him. "Wh-wha-whaddyou mean why didn't I activate my beacon? I did!" He unlocked and removed his shuriken R to show that the LED indicator on the beacon sewn into his suit underneath was indeed lit up. "I've been waiting here for almost two hours hoping that someone would come along to give me a lift home!”

Tim paused to draw a breath then went on in a heated tone. "I dropped off comms because the guy that gave me my concussion literally broke my communicator! And then my spare shorted out in the rain. I managed to haul myself up here after I activated my beacon with the hope that eventually someone would get the message so I wouldn't be forced to limp my way through three blocks of gang territory--with a concussion--to the nearest functional payphone just to call for a ride!"

Dick grimaced and looked away, ashamed. "Oh. Sorry, T. The storm has been messing with our transmissions all night. I only knew to come down here because Agent A and Oracle lost touch with you and couldn't get a ping on your suit trackers."

The annoyance and frustration on Tim's face melted away, leaving only exhaustion. "Oh, jeez. I didn't realize it had gotten that bad. I could hear Oracle just fine before I lost my comm. That's weird that my beacon didn't get through to her receiver, at the very least."

Dick frowned. "Yeah, it is." He stood up and offered a hand to Tim. The younger boy gladly let Dick pull him to his feet. "Well, that's a mystery we'll have to work out later. For now, let's focus on getting out of this rain." Tim nodded and hobbled forward awkwardly, favoring his right ankle as his face twisted in discomfort. "Oh! Don’t forget the mask," Dick remembered at the last second, returning Tim’s domino.

Tim shoved it over his eyes with a shudder and leaned heavily into Dick. "Okay. Let's get out of here," he hissed in a tight voice.

Dick huffed a laugh. "Wow, T, you got banged up good, didn’t you? I'm glad you didn't actually try to walk to that payphone. The petty criminals around here would have eaten you alive."

Tim stuck out his tongue then gasped when his bad ankle gave out on him. Dick squatted down, took one of Tim's arms over his shoulder, and stopped him just before he fell onto his face. "T-thanks," Tim gritted out, his expression caught between relief and agony.

"No problem. Let's get out of here. We need to get you back ASAP so A can take a look at that ankle, not to mention your head," Dick admitted soberly. "It's a shame you didn't make it just a little further north; then you would have been able to limp back to the car on your own. Probably."

"Yeah, but I still would have had to cross the bridge, and I don't think that would have gone too well between my leg slowing me down and the world spinning like a top every time I move my head," Tim admitted wryly as Dick helped him hop along the rooftop.

Dick grinned down at him fondly, then paused. "Wait. So how did you roll your ankle? Was it in the fight with that guy or-?"

Tim made a sound of distress and shook his head minutely. He turned his gaze away, but Dick could swear he saw color rising on Tim's cheeks in the dim light.

“I, uhh, I… tripped over a bottle in the alleyway while I was trying to sneak up on him. He was trying to mug another guy, and I didn’t see the bottle, tripped over it, it rolled under my foot, and then when I stepped down on it, my ankle rolled. My ankle made this really awful popping sound that both guys totally heard. They both turned around and just stared for, like, ten seconds.”

Dick tried to stifle his laughter but it bubbled out. “Oh nooo, Timmy, that’s so… I’m so sorry, man.”

“Names,” Tim snapped quietly. He sighed. “At least the distraction gave the victim a chance to get away. I, uh… I almost ate it during the ensuing fight, and then when I stumbled, the guy managed to get pretty hard blow in. Knocked me silly. If I hadn’t gotten my bo out and between us in time, I might not have made it up to that rooftop at all,” Tim admitted grimly.

Dick gave him a gentle noogie. “Ah, don’t beat yourself up about it, T. You saved a guy, you got away from the other one, and everything worked out okay in the end.”

Tim grunted. “I’m just glad Batman wasn’t here to see any of that.”

“Haha, yeah…” Dick cringed in sympathetic embarrassment. “That was probably for the best.”

Tim’s one-legged hopping faltered and Dick pulled hard on Tim’s arm to keep him from falling forward. Tim’s masked face whipped up to look at him in alarm. “You won’t tell him, will you?”

Dick shook his head. “Of course not, T. What happens between Robins stays between Robins.

"Or Alfred?”

Dick chuckled nervously. “Ahhh, well, I won’t say anything to him, but you know how Alfred is: he’ll get the truth out of you one way or another.”

Tim blanched and nodded. Dick patted him on the shoulder consolingly. “But I know he won’t tell B, either,” he reassured. “We’ve got your back, T.”

Tim smiled up at him. “Thanks.”

—

The storm picked up around them as he drove them back, mostly in silence. He spent most of the drive considering the critical errors of that night’s patrol.

First, going out during a forecasted nor'easter was a pretty novice mistake; Tim could be excused for it, but Alfred and Dick should have known better.

Second, and more importantly, they needed to discuss the serious flaws in the emergency communication system. They got lucky tonight. Things could have played out very differently, say, if Alfred hadn’t been paying closle attention to the comms, if Nightwing hadn’t been nearby, or if the storm had been any worse than it had been. Any situation in which Robin’s comm malfunctions, or his beacon fails to transmit, or the suit trackers don’t ping--or some perfect storm of the three, which is what happened tonight--is a potential recipe for (another) tragedy. Dick shuddered to think about what could have happened. He didn’t want to think about the very real possibility of Robin bleeding out in some dark alley, waiting with full faith for help that would never come, just because they hadn’t taken due precautions with their communications grid.

Dick glanced over at the teenager in the passenger seat and sighed. Tim had nodded off, his mouth hanging open slightly, his mask discarded on the dash. His eyelashes fluttered softly in his sleep. Dick’s heart clenched at the sight. Tim could have died tonight, had his injuries been any worse - if he’d been shot, if he’d been stabbed, if the concussion had resulted in a brain bleed - or if help had never come and he’d succumbed to hypothermia.

Dick cranked up the heat a few more notches and pushed the car just a couple miles per hour faster, feeling a desperate urge to get them back to the safety of the Cave before any more dark and stormy misfortunes could prey upon them. He tapped the steering wheel thoughtfully for a few moments, then began laying out his plan of attack for when Bruce returned.

He and Bruce would have to have a talk. They needed backup comms, redundant trackers, multi-point relay stations, and, most importantly, two or more emergency beacons on each of them. That was just a start. They would need to discuss further measures to ensure that help would never be out of range for any Bat. For a man whose paranoia was legendary, one who had already lost so much, you would have thought that these precautions would already be in place, but when it came to Bruce...

Dick frowned. Bruce would bristle at these suggestions and they would argue, no doubt, but after tonight, after so many close calls--after Jason--considering everything they could stand to lose for something as small as a broken comm or inadequate emergency beacons, Dick could not afford not to convince Bruce to see reason. He glanced over at Tim once more and his expression hardened. Yes, Dick thought grimly, one way or another, he would get Batman to see sense. Hell or high water. That was, after all, a Robin’s job.