The second one-shot I promised to a reviewer of my story Death of a Partner, Birth of a Hero.
Mickey's Girl, I really hope you like this! I had so much fun writing it!
Prompt: Robin loses his phone, and soon Bruce Wayne receives an unwanted call.
Disclaimer: Unfortunately I do not own Young Justice . . . or even a phone . . . .
Jason wasn't sure when he'd dropped his phone. He'd spent the afternoon wandering around Central City with Wally and Dick, and they'd seen a movie, gone to a fast food place, and then headed back to Wally's to play video games. He'd only realized it was missing now, as he and Dick started to head back home.
"Crap," he muttered, stopping dead in the street. "Bruce is gonna kill me."
Dick turned back when he realized Jason wasn't next to him. "Woah, what's up?" he asked, seeing the annoyance on his brother's face.
"I lost my phone," he snapped, checking his pockets again. "I can't believe it!"
"Well, where do you think you left it?" Dick asked, concern in his eyes. The phone wasn't that big a deal, Bruce could always just buy Jason a new one, but Dick knew that Jason had some things that hinted towards their secret identities on his phone. There were some rather incriminating pictures of Tim sleeping in full Robin costume.
"That's just it, I have no idea. We went so many places today, and I only just realized it was missing," Jason said.
Dick grimaced. "Alright, let's go find a nice dark place, change into costume, and then I can hack your phone and wipe it of anything important, alright?"
Jason blinked. It was one of Bruce's rules that they didn't suit up in another hero's town without permission, and Dick usually tried not to break the rules if he could help it. A grin spread over his face. "Yes, let's," he agreed.
On the other side of Central City, in a small Whataburger, a man sat with his head in his hands in a corner booth. He hadn't ordered anything, and the others in the small restaurant chose seats as far from him as possible.
Simon Jackson was broke. He was a single father, his wife having died a few months earlier in a car accident. His three children were hungry, and he'd lost his job last week. He was desperate, and he didn't know what to do. He'd had his tenth job interview today, and been turned down again. He hadn't eaten more than one meal in three days, giving as much food as possible to his kids, and now he didn't even have enough food for them.
"What am I going to do?" he whispered. Suddenly there was a beep next to him, and he raised his head to see an expensive cellphone lying on the table.
"Missed message," he read from the screen.
He looked around, then grabbed the phone, stuffing it in his pocket. Then he stood, and made his way out of the restaurant. Once he was a few blocks away, he took out the phone, and flicked it on. It had been left unlocked, and immediately sent him to the last missed message.
"Bruce Wayne?" Simon said, shocked. Whoever owned this phone was getting messages from Bruce Wayne? Who owned this? After a minute more of searching he found the name of the owner, and stared. Jason Todd. That was one of Wayne's wards. The guy seemed to have a soft spot for orphans and kids off the street.
An idea started forming in the back of Simon's mind, something he'd never do under normal circumstances, but hey, he was desperate.
After several minutes of hesitating, he called Bruce Wayne.
Bruce was getting annoyed. He'd spent the last twenty minutes trying to call Dick and Jason, and neither of them were picking up. They were supposed to zeta to the cave, and then he and Tim would pick them up and they'd go to Clark's.
Suddenly his phone started ringing. He checked who it was and had his phone to his ear in seconds. "Jason, what have the two of you been doing? I've been trying to call you for almost half an hour," he snapped, allowing his worry to fade slightly.
A second later it was back full force, as the person on the other end of the phone laughed. That wasn't Jason.
"Looking for your little Jason?" A man asked. His voice was obviously disguised, and not with a mechanical voice scrambler either. "Sorry Wayne, you're not going to be finding him anytime soon, at least not until the money is forked over."
A wave of cold fear rushed over him, and he stood up, ignoring the startled look he got from Tim, who was sitting next to him on the couch.
"What do you mean? Who are you? Where is my son? Where's Richard?"
There was a harsh laugh. "Neither of your brats are coming back to you until I have my money. Fifty thousand, before tomorrow or they die. I've never been one to kill kids, so I hope you hurry Wayne."
The man hung up, and Bruce was left holding his beeping phone and staring at it in blank shock.
"Did you do it yet?" Jason asked testily, looking around uncomfortably. He and Dick were sitting on top of a roof overlooking Central City, and Dick was rapidly typing away at his small wrist computer.
Dick frowned. "Someone used it," he said slowly. "Jason, someone used your phone to call Bruce. From what I can tell on the talk to text mechanism you and I installed, he's pretending he kidnapped you."
The two boys exchanged long glances, then Jason smiled wickedly. "How long should we let this go on?" he asked slowly.
Dick shrugged. "Depends on how long Bruce believes it, don't you think?" he said casually.
After all, Bruce was Batman. It wouldn't take him that long to figure out that someone had tried to dupe him.
Right?
"In the meantime, I'll put a tracker on the guy who stole your phone, and we can follow him around. Alright?" Dick said, raising an eyebrow at his younger brother.
"Oh yeah."
"Pick up!" Bruce growled at his phone. Dick still wasn't answering, which worried him. If one or the other of them had been kidnapped, usually the other one would immediately contact him. The kidnapper hadn't directly mentioned Dick until Bruce himself brought him up, so what did that mean?
Being paranoid, Bruce knew it could mean any number of things, a great majority of which were not good. Of course, Dick was Nightwing. He could take care of himself. Even in his persona as Dick, he had at least basic self defense training, and so did Jason. How could a run of the mill kidnapper have gotten a hold of either of them?
Bruce gave up on trying to contact Dick, and instead tried for Wally. Wally picked up on the second ring. "Hey, what's up? This is Wally," he said quickly. "Is something wrong?"
"Why do you assume there's something wrong?" Bruce asked darkly. "Did something happen while you were out?"
"No, but Batman, you never call me over a civilian device unless something's happened to Dick, Tim, or Jason in their civilian life," Wally said frankly.
Bruce had to admit that the speedster was probably right about that.
"I just got a call from a man who says he kidnapped Jason. He mentioned Dick as well, but only once I brought him up, so I doubt they were both captured. Are they still there?" he added hopefully.
"No, they left almost forty minutes ago," Wally said quickly.
In a second he was completely decked out in his Kid Flash costume, and on the streets. "No worries Batman, if Jason was kidnapped I'll find him. Besides, if Dick wasn't, I'm sure he's around here somewhere. Kid Flash, out."
Simon Jackson was cursing himself. He was stupid. Stupid! Bruce Wayne was a millionaire! This kid, Jason, was basically his son! He could have just gotten himself arrested, if not for actually kidnapping the kid, but for stealing his phone. His kids would be sent into the system, and he doubted that he'd get them back. That couldn't happen!
"You look pretty beat up, are you alright?" a concerned voice said from next to him.
Simon jumped, turning to see a masked teenage guy standing next to him. He recognized him as one of the Gotham vigilantes, and cringed. Could Bruce Wayne have contacted Batman and his sidekicks that quickly?
"I- I . . ." he trailed off uncertainly. The concern on the kid's face seemed genuine. "Um . . . I'm just . . . I'm fine."
The raised eyebrow and the skeptical expression on the kid's face told Simon that he was just as unconvincing as he'd feared he would be.
He groaned. "I did something very stupid," he admitted.
"Oh we've all done stupid things," the hero said dismissively. "Generally for what we deem really good reasons. Want to share your reasons?"
Simon was suddenly positive that the hero knew he'd stolen the phone and was trying to give him a way out of the situation. He wanted to know why he'd taken it, why he'd said what he'd said. Of course, this hero probably had been told he'd kidnapped the Wayne kid . . .
"It's my kids," he suddenly burst out. "My wife died a few months ago, and I lost my job last week. I've tried, and tried, but no one will hire me! My kids are going to go hungry tonight because we don't even have enough money to buy food. I need to find a way to feed them, but I don't know what to do . . ."
"You seem to have a pretty expensive phone," the hero noted, his voice soft. "You could always sell that."
"That's just it!" Simon cried. "This isn't mine to sell! I found it, and I just took it. It's one of the Wayne kids', Jason Todd. I called Mr. Wayne and told him I'd kidnapped his kid, but I didn't, and he'll think I did, and either way I'm going to prison."
"I don't know, Mr. Wayne's been pretty lenient in the past," the hero said, shaking his head. Then he hesitated. "Alright, no he hasn't, but I think he'll make an exception in this case. Can I see the phone?"
He held out his hand, and after a brief hesitation, Simon handed it over. After all, his day couldn't get any worse.
Bruce was suited up as Batman. Alfred and Tim were standing behind him, watching as he traced the phone. It hadn't moved in almost ten minutes. It wasn't anywhere near a good hideout for a kidnapper.
Had the man just abandoned the phone? And why wouldn't Dick pick up?
Bruce growled as Dick's voice once again spoke the cheerful words, "this is Dick Grayson. Leave your name and number after the tone, unless this is Wally, then text me, or Barbara, then you should just come over. If it's Bruce, I'll . . . Get back to you. Tim and Jason, you know the faster ways to communicate with me. Alfred, I'll call you back." He hung up the phone, not bothering to leave another message. If the first three didn't reach Dick, then none of them would.
Suddenly his phone rang, and glancing down, he immediately grabbed it and held it to his ear. "Yes?" he demanded. "What do you want?"
"Woah there, Mr. Wayne, I suggest you relax," Dick said calmly. "Jason only lost his phone, and some kid found it and thought it would be funny to play a practical joke."
"Well tell the kid that it was not funny!" Bruce snapped before he could stop himself. "Richard Grayson, you need to learn how to answer your phone!"
There was a startled silence on the other end, then a wry chuckle. "I'm sorry Mr. Wayne, I was unaware you were trying to contact me," he said, making no effort at all to sound contrite. "Don't worry, the kid already got a severe talking to. I'll get the phone back to Jason, and send him home. Goodbye Mr. Wayne."
Then Dick hung up.
Bruce groaned, half relieved, half furious. Why in the world had he thought it would be a good idea to accept children into his home?
Dick said goodbye to the very grateful man, who introduced himself as Simon Jackson, giving his phone number and saying if there was ever anything he could do to help Nightwing out, he'd be more than willing.
Whether he'd be able was a different question entirely.
Dick faded into the shadows as the man walked away briskly, and then turned to Jason and smirked. "Here's your phone."
Jason snorted. "Why is it that you get to have all the fun?" he asked.
Dick shrugged. "If you tell me that you could have handled it better, then I will willingly tell Bruce that the whole thing was your idea."
Jason glared at him. "Fine," he muttered.
Suddenly Wally zipped into the alley. "So, dudes, when you said you were leaving about an hour and a half ago, did you mean that one of you was going to get kidnapped and then Batman was going to call and basically make me run around Central City for forty minutes? Because if so, next time I'm only inviting Tim," he said seriously.
Dick shrugged. "Unplanned detour," he said. "Besides, neither of us were actually kidnapped, so it wasn't that big of a deal."
"Are you telling me that Batman overreacted?" Wally asked, sounding a little bit too excited at the thought.
Dick and Jason exchanged glances.
"Not really," Jason finally said. "I lost my phone, and some guy decided that Bruce Wayne deserved a prank call that told him one of his sons had been kidnapped."
Wally snorted. "Well, I'd hate to be in your shoes when you get home. Better fly, mom's probably done with dinner. Bye Nightwing, bye Rob, see you another time." Then Wally zipped away.
Dick and Jason exchanged long glances. "We'd better go," Dick admitted. "Apparently Bruce has been calling me all afternoon."
Jason frowned. "Why didn't you just answer your phone and save us all this trouble?" he asked. "We didn't even have to find this guy!"
Dick shrugged. "I think I left my phone at Barbara's house when we were studying last night," he said, sounding unconcerned.
There was a long moment of silence during which Jason stared at his brother. "You didn't tell Bruce?"
"I forgot."
Another moment of silence. "You realize we have communicators, right?"
"I forgot that too."
Barbara muttered some not so very nice words as the ringing continued. It had been going almost nonstop for the past hour and a half, but she couldn't find the source anywhere. It certainly wasn't her phone, and while the ringtone sounded familiar, she couldn't quite place it.
Suddenly she caught sight of a silver casing underneath a pile of papers on her desk, and pulled it out triumphantly, only to freeze as she realized what she was holding. This was Dick Grayson's phone.
Barbara grinned wickedly, and started to formulate a few million things she could do with this. But first, a phone call.
Bwahahahaha! A lot of fun to write.
By the way, even though I didn't write this out, Simon Jackson gets a call the next day and is hired by the Wayne Enterprises division in Central City. Yep!
Anyways! I really hope you enjoyed this!
REVIEW!
(Three one-shots in one day and that day is Christmas? O.o wow.)
Happy Holidays!