Chapter Text
“B just had to have today off,” Batman mumbles, passing the binoculars back over to Red Robin with a sigh. Dick had only been doing what he thought would be good for Damian and Bruce after all. The father-son pair needed to spend more time as Bruce and Damian rather than out as Batman and Robin. Bruce had given in after finding out that Damian’s school was having a parent night. It was a Thursday, which meant what should have been a slow night of stopping muggings had turned into a stakeout for one of Bruce’s current cases.
Red Robin can’t help the tired laugh that escapes as he looks at the situation below. “Weren’t you the one pestering him into taking the night so he could spend time with the gremlin?” He says softly, mentally noting the number of armed men down by the dock.
Batman rolls his eyes, shaking his head as he swings his legs from his seat on the edge of the building they sat on. “I was, but I didn’t think we’d end up doing the takedown on one of his cases tonight.” He lets out another sigh, watching a black SUV come to a stop outside of the dock warehouse. It sits for a moment before four people climb out and head inside.
“You should always expect things not to go to plan,” Red Robin says. He shifts to sit down fully next to Batman as he runs a hand through his hair. Red was glad he chose not to wear the cowl that night since the weather was nice for once.
“We don’t even know what they’re built-” Bats starts but gets interrupted suddenly.
“As lovely as this conversation is, boys,” Oracle chimes in over comms. It makes the two men on the rooftop mumble soft apologies. “I’m reading a massive energy spike from inside the warehouse. Seems like they’ve activated the device.”
The two look at each other before nodding and starting to stand as they pull out their grapples. “Understood. Heading in and going silent, O,” Batman says. His voice shifted back into the voice he used as Batman rather than his normal voice.
The guards outside of the warehouse were easier than the normal brand of thugs the mad scientists in Gotham tended to hire. Which made sense because this group was from Metropolis, Red Robin couldn’t help but note. Red kicked his fifth thug in the face before turning to clip a sixth in the back of the legs with his bo staff.
After taking down thug number six, Red Robin starts to head towards the main doors of the warehouse and glances over to see Batman making his way over. Batman nods to Red before they are both looking at the doors, which judging by the sounds of the panic inside, was most likely locked.
The two bats make it up to the doors before kicking them in, managing to land their kicks on the door at the same time. They toss in a few smoke pellets while flipping their lenses into infrared to start taking down the different thugs that were trying to keep them away from the device that the scientists were scrambling to finish.
The moment the last thug hit the ground, the two bats turn to see one of the scientists pointing a device at them. “I hope you two like trying new things,” She laughs, hitting a few buttons on the alien-looking device in her hands. “Because you two are in for a trip.” Batman and Red Robin rush forward, only to be with a strange burst of purple energy and have their vision go white.
When their vision returned, they were standing in what seemed to be a newer and empty warehouse. Red can’t help but groan, bringing a hand up to the side of his head as he waits for the ringing in his ears to stop. He squints and looks around for a moment before speaking. “What the fuck was that?” His voice is hardly above a mumble, bringing up his gauntlet computer and starting to scan for any remaining energy that could give them clues.
“No clue…” Batman says, gravel from earlier gone as he brings a hand up to tap at his comm. “Oracle?” He asks, frowning when there is static coming from the line, and starts trying some of the other frequencies that they had. “Red, are your comms working?” Batman turns to look at Red. The smaller man was now crouched by a burn mark on the floor where they had been when they had made contact with the beam.
Red turns to look at Batman with a small frown before bringing a hand up to test his comms, tapping through each one when he hears static instead of the normal silence. “No. Seems like whatever she shot us with has knocked them out.” He stands and turns quickly to face Batman as he starts typing something that the other man couldn’t read on the holo screen. “The date isn’t off,” Red continues, “It seems like we’re only out of it for five minutes at most.”
Batman frowns, “Not enough time for them to pack everything up and give the building a good clean.” He brings up his holo screen to pull up the local news to try and get an idea if other anomalies were noticed in the city.
“This is Vicky Vale. We have just been informed that Bruce Wayne and his son have been abducted,” The woman on Batman’s holo screen looked like their Vale, maybe slightly younger, but it was hard to tell with the blue screen. This causes Red and Bats to make eye contact as the woman continues to speak. “From what we have been told they were taken from Gotham Academy in the last half hour by armed men. No injuries have been reported-”
“Let's move,” Batman says as Red nods, both shutting down their screens before starting to rush towards the doors. They flick on their police scanners, trying to get more of a lead on where the men could have been taking Bruce and Damian, and pull their grapples out to start heading toward Gotham Academy.
“At least the city seems the same so far,” Red says when they make it a few blocks from the warehouse. Batman opens his mouth but doesn’t get a chance to say anything as the scanner clicks on. They hear some reports involving an unmarked van driving recklessly through the East End that was like the Waynes were put in.
“They made this easy didn’t they,” Batman says, shaking his head as they change directions. The two start to make their way toward that part of town. Red laughs as they make their next jump and does a flip midair before landing.
“I’m sure the gremlin is loving this. He finally gets to see Brucie during a kidnapping,” Red says after they make it onto the next rooftop, which makes the Bat next to him snort. “Come on. They’ll be fine. It’s probably just another ransom attempt. No one was hurt when they were taken.”
Red Robin was right, these kidnappers had to be new to this, which made Dick roll his eyes behind the cowl as they settled on the edge of a building next to the construction where the van is abandoned in. It hadn’t even taken them that long to find the right van and their location after Red had finished hacking into the traffic cameras in that area.
“Looks like they are on the third floor. Only five men,” Red says, looking between the skeleton of the building and his holo screen. “Only three of them seem to have guns.”
Batman nods slightly, “Any clue on where they are keeping them right now?” He says, eyes narrowing as he looks across to the third floor where they could faintly see the occasional flashlight beam sweep over one the edges of the level.
“Judging by the building plans and the heat signatures, it seems that they are being kept on this side of the building. It’s far from the staircases and elevator shafts,” Red says. He turns his arm slightly so the other vigilante can see the floor plan. “Police are ten minutes out. Sounds like they called in the ransom and demanded a representative of Wayne’s to deliver it.”
Batman nods and lets out a small sigh, “Where are the gunmen?” He asks, shifting to stand on the edge as he mentally tries to calculate if he could make the glide onto that floor.
“One at the elevators and the others at the stairs,” Red says. He gestures to where each man seemed to be posted on the map, before pointing at another spot. “The other two are with B and D here.”
“We enter on the fourth floor, they probably aren’t expecting a threat from above,” Bats says. The older man reaches over to flip to the floor plan of the fourth floor. It seemed to be almost identical to the third-floor structure-wise. Hopefully, they could get this taken care of before Damian tried to stab anyone, but knowing Dick’s luck the kid already had.
Red nods, dropping his arm by his side as his screen shuts off, “Silent takedowns then. We don’t know what weapons the two with B have on them.”
Batman nods, “Let’s move then.” They pull out their grapples and set off toward the building.
On the scale of pros to idiots who like snatching people, these five had to be at a half-baked plan. Since they didn’t even have comms running or any contingency plans. The Bats manage to take down the three gunmen quietly. Only one of the gunmen took a tumble down the stairs after being knocked out. Which was somewhat disappointing, Red couldn’t help but think, because only newbies yelled to each other to communicate in a space this big and sectioned off.
The two bats meet back up near the elevator shafts before starting to make their way toward the last two men and their captives. Batman looks over at Red Robin, pulling a smoke pellet out and tapping on the side of his cowl to swap his lens over to the correct vision, and gives a small nod when he sees Red doing the same thing.
“Yo Bill!” One of the thugs standing nearby yells, Tommy if Bruce was remembering correctly. Tommy was glancing between the street, where he could see police lights coming, and the plastic sheeting currently splitting this part of the floor from the rest. “Looks like payday is here!”
Bruce can’t help but let out a small sigh of relief before tightening his hold on the boy in his arms. One of the men reaches for them and Bruce narrows his eyes into a glare at the man.
“Bill!” The other thug yells, only to shift nervously when they don’t get a response.
“Kyle, you go check on them. I don’t think these two will give me trouble,” Tommy says. He pulls a large knife out of his boot and shines his flashlight on the two on the floor as he moves closer to Bruce. Kyle is almost at the doorway when the space is suddenly filling with smoke. Bruce tightens his hold on his boy as he closes his eyes as hears Tommy and Kyle scream, fists making contact with flesh, and bodies hitting the floor.
The billionaire waits until the smell of the smoke has dissipated slightly before opening his eyes to see, what he determined was, a poor attempt at impersonating Batman and Robin turning to look at him. Bruce’s hand slides to the back of his son’s head as he stands, eyes completely focused on the two, and starting to take a step back.
“You’re safe now, Mr. Wayne,” The Batman says, offering him what seems to be a small smile. Bruce hums, eyes narrowing at them before shifting the boy in his arms.
“That means thank you in Bruce-speak,” The boy whispers, muffled by his guardian’s shoulder.
The Batman’s head tilts slightly in confusion when the boy speaks, not getting a chance to say anything as the Robin steps forward. “If you’ll come with us we’ll get you down to the police before they come storming in,” The Robin says, hands up and empty to show that he wasn’t a threat.
When Bruce finally nods, they both let out a small breath before starting to lead the way to the closer stairs. The Batman and strange Robin exchange glances during the trek down to the ground level and seem to be doing their best not to look over at Bruce and the boy too much. Something which makes Bruce all that more anxious as he stares at the back of their heads. The two imposters separate and hang back to let Bruce walk past as they near the edge of the pool light the police had started shining on the exit.
The only noise for a moment is the quiet chattering of the police telling each other to stand down and that it seems like Batman had taken care of their job before a yell makes people look over.
“Bruce! Let me through. Bruce!” A blond man seems to be pushing through the crowd of police, breaking in a slight run once he gets free of the officers and squad cars. Batman and Red Robin look over at each other in confusion for a second before watching Bruce move toward the unknown man.
They can’t help but shift uncomfortably when the man hugs Bruce and the boy for a second before pulling back and cupping Bruce’s face as he kisses his mouth.
“I was so worried about you two,” The man said once he had pulled back. “Are you both okay? No one hurt you right?”
That makes the boy lift his head to look at him, but from where the two vigilantes are standing they can’t quite see the boy’s face, only the top of his head.
“I’m fine, B kept me safe,” The boy says somewhat cheerfully and laughs as the blond tries to check them over. Now that the boy's voice was a bit more clear Batman could recognize it as his own, from when he was younger. They can't help but take a step back in shock as the reality of this sets in. Batman glances over at Red Robin as police start to head into the building to collect the kidnappers, only to meet Red's similarly wide-eyed expression of shock.
Gordon breaks away from a group of officers after he had spotted the two masked men standing off to the side in the slight shadows. “Nice work Bats…” Gordon says, “You get a new suit and friend?” He raises an eyebrow as he looks over at the not-quite-black-blue bat suit before looking toward Red Robin. Red gives Gordon a small smile, trying to cover up the panic that was bubbling up in his chest.
“Something like that,” Batman murmurs, looking back over at where Bruce was standing with the man and child.
Gordon follows his gaze after a second, “Thanks again…” By the time Gordon is turning back to say more to Batman and Red Robin, they’re gone. “I’ll never get used to that,” He mumbles, shaking his head before starting to head back over to where Bruce and the child are giving statements.