Chapter Text
Danny doesn’t know what to do.
The ambulance is tearing back out of the bay, leaving him standing there, staring after the blinking lights until they disappear into the dark. His mind keeps glitching, Tim’s eyes reflecting the fire, Tim’s bone-pale face, Tim’s surprised grin flashing like quicksilver…
Tim’s limp body hidden beneath tubes and wires and stark hospital sheets as they EMTs raced him out the doors and into the ambulance and out of Danny’s sight.
The nurse from the campsite guides him back to the truck and Danny can’t find it in him to say a word.
He blinks and he’s back in the camp, the nurse in front of him.
“Pack a bag,” the nurse tells him. Danny does. “Are you good to drive?” The nurse asks. Danny nods. He is. He has to be.
He walks over to the car and realizes that he doesn’t even have the keys. They’re still in Tim’s pocket. He snorts out a laugh, and that’s it. That’s what does it.
In the next moment he’s flying, tears streaming down his face, shaking and terrified and relying on instinct to take him to Tim. It takes him a while to figure out that that’s a stupid idea, and he pauses midair to fish his phone out of his pocket. He put the hospital information into it when the doctor told him where they were transferring Tim, so it’s the work of a few seconds to find the address and click through to his GPS.
Or it should be. His hands are shaking so hard he drops his phone and has to dive to catch it.
He twists around until the little arrow points in the direction of the hospital, and then immediately blasts toward it, the world beneath him outlined in the grey light of just-before dawn. His bag thuds against his back, but he doesn’t spare a hand to hold it down. It’s uncomfortable. He can’t bear to think of his own comfort. Not when- Not when Tim might-
His bag thuds against his back.
His mind is empty of everything but the hope and fear circling each other like wolves in his brain. It isn’t until he looks down and sees a jogger that he realizes he needs to go invisible.
It isn’t until he sees a woman walking a child towards a parked school bus that he realizes he needs to call Tim’s family.
He fumbles his phone back out of his pocket and calls Tucker. Tucker picks up with a mumble that might be an attempt at words.
“I need Bruce Wayne’s number,” Danny says in a rush. His voice sounds strange.
“Danny? What the hell?” Tucker mutters back, clearly only half-awake, if that.
“Tuck, please, Tim got hurt, he’s in the hospital, and-” Danny’s voice breaks.
“Shit. Shit, yeah,” Tucker says, and Danny can hear him scrambling out of bed. He hears a keyboard a moment later. “I got you, man. You’re flying?”
“Mmhm,” Danny hums, voice tight. He’s crying. He’s still crying, tears wet and freezing cold on his face. He doesn’t know if he ever stopped.
“Okay, got it,” Tucker says, and Danny feels the phone buzz against his ear.
He pulls the phone down and hangs up on Tuck. The feeling that that was rude drifts around somewhere in his head but he just can’t care. He puts up the notification and hits the number.
It rings. And rings. And rings.
It goes to voicemail. Danny sobs.
He does his best to fly a little faster and calls again.
It rings and just halfway through the next ring someone picks up the phone.
“Hello?” A voice groans.
Danny bites back another sob. He isn’t sure how successful he is.
“Hello?” The voice says, more awake now. “Who is this?”
“It’s Danny,” Danny says, uselessly. Tim told his family he was taking a long weekend to himself, but they didn’t know Danny was with him, and it’s not like they’d even know who he was anyway, so it’s not like it matters who he is, what matters is, “Tim’s in the hospital.”
“Tim’s what?” The voice snaps, Tim’s Dad snaps, wide awake now.
“The doctor said he’s septic,” Danny says, shoving a hand through his hair and taking a deep breath to try to settle himself.
He has to speak loudly to be heard over the wind, he knows, but it’s hard to raise his voice and not break it. He desperately wishes he had just forced his way onto the ambulance, wishes he had said ‘fuck it’ and gone ghost right there and followed Tim instead of letting himself be led back to the campsite, what the fuck was he thinking? He wasn’t, is the thing. He just… wasn’t.
“We were camping, just talking by the fire, and then he suddenly went white,” Danny can hear his words speeding up, knows he isn’t making much sense, but he can’t help it, “and he his side was wrapped up in bloody bandages and they were yellow at the edges and we brought him to the hospital, but they’re only a level four, so he’s being transferred to a level one. I’m on my way there.”
He can hear movement on the other side, has been hearing movement the whole time he’s been speaking, but the next sound he hears is two words, growled so lowly they’re barely understandable over the wind.
“Which hospital?”
And Danny blanks.
“Um, it’s… It’s,” he sniffs, takes a deep breath. “Hang on.”
He pulls down the phone and finds the information. Texts it to Tim’s father.
What a way to meet the parents.
“I sent you the address.”
The calls drops.
Danny pulls the phone from his ear. The text message has a double check next to it.
That’s fair, he thinks, somewhere in the back of his brain.
He can see he has more texts, probably from Tucker, but he doesn’t have anything left to answer them with. He shoves his phone in his pocket and pushes his core for every ounce of speed he can manage to find.
Time stretches interminably, roads and trees and tiny towns flashing past below Danny, until he hits the outskirts of a real city, and then finally the hospital comes into view. Danny dives down, phases through the building and finds an out-of-the-way corner to come back into visibility. He bolts back to reception, almost slipping in his haste to get to the front counter.
He isn’t sure what he says, isn’t sure how he talks his way into the hospital, but soon enough the nurse gives him a kind smile and directions that lead him up to surgery. The elevator takes an age, but then he’s out and following signs, and he finds himself facing a heavily-locked set of doors.
He’s here. He’s here, Tim’s somewhere on the other side of those doors, but there’s nothing Danny can do.
There’s nothing he can do now but wait.
He stands there until a nurse comes to ask him if he needs help. He just stares helplessly at her. Her face turns sad and understanding, and she gently takes his elbow and leads him to a nearby hallway with a few couches built into the wall. He lowers himself to sit down on the soft cushions. They shouldn’t be soft, the thought floats through his empty mind. His bag slides to the ground with a thump.
Danny hunches over on the couch, wishing he was in the corner so he could curl up. He can’t make himself move. He leans down, his head hanging, his elbows on his knees, hands dropped between them. Tears drip down, and his hearing tunnels until all he can hear is the little plip each drop makes on the floor.
At some point his stomach growls. A hand lands on his shoulder, and he looks up. It’s another nurse. The sunlight is bright through the windows, and it distantly occurs to him that he has no idea how much time has passed.
“Have you eaten?” The woman asks. Danny shakes his head.
She takes him to the cafeteria and he leaves with a bagel in hand. He eats, but he can’t taste anything.
Another hand lands on his shoulder.
“You’re here for Tim Drake-Wayne?” A voice asks. He turns. There’s a man in surgical scrubs, his face mask untied and loose around his neck. Danny nods, his heart in his throat.
The man smiles.
“I just came out of surgery with him. He’s going to be fine.”