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This was how it started. “Wait! Wait! Take me instead!”
*
When it happened, there was no flash of light, no zap of sound, no staticky tingle of energy coursing through their bodies.
What there actually was was the feeling of the mind being grabbed, yanked upside down, spun about six times on its axis and then dumped unceremoniously into what could only be called a vat of pure, liquid nonsense, where sounds became colours, lights became numbers, up became down and day became night, all threaded through with an incoherent feeling of lying on their backs on a hard, cold surface, a scream and a “No, WAIT!” shouted at the very top of the shrill register.
Dreamlike, they saw a girl in a pink dress, crying and terrified.
Then they came back into the real world.
*
For Stephanie Brown, this happened halfway between two buildings, the steady arc of the swing suddenly an ungainly spin and she thrashed madly and tried to orientate herself. She screamed and hit a window like a fly on a windshield, before peeling off and landing on an incredibly fortunately placed fire escape.
“What the fuck?” she shrieked.
*
For Jason Todd, he just mundanely woke up from a sound sleep, weird words echoing through the fucking terrible dream he’d just had. He sat up, looked around, looking down and…
“What the FUCK?!”
“Stephanie Brown!” yelled a woman’s voice from somewhere else in the crummy apartment. “What kind of language is that?”
*
Rob… Jason? Spoiler? What the fuck ever, he managed to escape Crystal Brown some time around midnight.
It had been, quite frankly, the weirdest fucking hour of his life.
Being trapped in the body of a teenage girl was weird enough. He felt lumpy and wobbly and he’d practically rolled himself in layers to hide his… the chest from himself. Spoiler’s homemade suit was looking ridiculously padded, like one of those puffy winter jackets. Jason was a card carrying member of his school’s Rainbow Connection, so he knew a handful of trans people. If this was what dysphoria felt like - this ugly, repulsive, clawing sensation of being in the wrong skin - then Jason couldn’t blame them for wanting to get under the knife and make it right as soon as possible.
Holy shit, this felt wrong.
And also? He now knew who fucking Spoiler was as well. That was another layer of weird. Bereft of any other options when Cry- Mz Brown left for her graveyard shift in the ER, Jason had shamelessly snooped in the Brown’s somewhat dilapidated Newtown apartment, trying to find something, anything, that would explain what the fuck he was doing there.
He found a lot more than he expected to find, that was for sure.
So here he was, stuffed into an ill fitting skin in a certainly-not-bulletproof vigilante suit, huffing irritably under the full face mask and trying not to think about the flabbiness of his chest region, a purple cased phone clutched in one hand and a Louisville slugger slung over his shoulder. Even with the new duds, Jason’s walk was pure pissed off predator. He hadn’t had a single catcall yet; no asshole was willing to risk their life on the clearly homicidal female seething mutely under a purple blanket cape and carrying a blunt instrument with that much sheer intent on display.
He went to the bus terminal nearest the Brown’s apartment.
He’d cracked Stephanie’s phone code. She subscribed to the BatWatch app.
He added ‘PR disaster’ to his shit list for tonight the bus he was waiting for pulled up and a very familiar looking figure, fully geared up and with a fucking grapple gun no less, stormed off it.
“YOU!” Spoiler bellowed in Robin’s low baritone as she spotted her own body standing there, tapping it foot. “You… you!” she stormed up to Robin, almost foaming at the mouth. “What the fuck… what is happening? What the fuck are you wearing? What the fuck did you do to my suit? Who are you? WHAT IS HAPPENING?” She screamed at the top of his voice, shaking him like a mad thing.
“Do you want me to reveal your secret identity here, or do you think we should go somewhere more private?” Robin hissed, eyes darting to the watching people. Gothamite’s were Olympic level mind-your-own-businessers, but even they had their limits.
Spoiler let him go like she’d been burned, face a wildly over-boiling cauldron of expressions, far more vivid than Robin would ever let show on his own face. “Fine!” she snapped and stalked back towards her apartment.
Robin stopped her. “Unless you want a tonne of bad guys knowing Robin has been in your apartment,” he told her waving the Batwatch screen in front of her. “I suggest somewhere more neutral than where you live.”
Spoiler stared at the phone, it’s little photo tags showing her entire route through Gotham on the bus. “Fuck! Fine! Where to?”
‘Neutral’ ended up being a rooftop two blocks over, the journey there a long and arduous parade of pissed off sniping back and forth because it was easier to get shitty than actually think about what was happening. Robin grumbled and sat on the roof while Spoiler scaled the fire escape with all the subtlety of a rhinoceros in tap shoes, because she flat out refused to use the grapple gun, which was perfectly safe, thank you very much. It was now sitting next to him on the rooftop with the bat, because her suit had none of the useful compartments or hooks or anything that his had. She had a fucking blanket cape, for fucks sake.
He made a face at himself at that thought. Fuck, he’d somehow turned into an equipment snob.
Finally his body emerged onto the rooftop, scowling and ungainly. She was clearly having problems maneuvering his mass or dealing with the fact that her upper body strength was dialled up to eleven, judging by the way she heaved herself over the tip, pulled too hard and ended with a clumsy roll onto the roof as she overbalanced over the parapet. “Fuck,” she muttered.
“Hey, be careful with that,” Robin muttered. “I’d rather not deal with you breaking my body.”
“I’d rather not deal with your fucking body at all, for any reason,” she growled back, righting herself. “So what the fuck is happening? What did you do?! I went to bed and then the next thing I know I’m swinging ten stories up between two fucking buildings and I have a fucking dick!”
“Hey, I woke up without my fucking dick and I was very attached to it!” Robin snapped back at her. “Why do you think I did anything?”
“Because you fuckers deal with all the weird shit in this town!” Spoiler shot back. “I sure as shit don’t go around pissing off mental patients in tights with access to fucking crazy body switching ray guns, or whatever the fuck actually happened! I was in bed, asleep!” Her voice went shriller and wilder. “I was in bed, asleep and my mom was right there and then I was in fucking Chinatown and this body is all fucking wrong and fucking sounds are colours and my shoulders feel puke green and what the fuck is up with that anyway!” she shrieked hysterically,
Robin blinked. With all the mess he hadn’t realised; sounds weren’t making colours right now. He tried to dial back his own anger, which was basically his go-to reaction to discomfort. His sensory issues weren’t the easiest to deal with and he’d had them all his life. This couldn’t be easy for Spoiler. “It’s okay,” he tried to make his voice as calm as he could. “Just breathe for me, okay? Stephanie, I need you to focus on my voice right now. Just inhale, count to four, then exhale, okay?”
“Your voice is fucking silver,” she choked out. “Mine’s red,” her voice wobbled. “What’s wrong with me?! Am I having a brain aneurysm? Am I dying?”
“Nothing,” Robin said calmly. “Nothing is wrong. You’re not dying. But you are having a panic attack so you need to breathe, okay? Just breathe. Breathe in and hold it for me. Two… three… four. Okay, now breathe out. Two… three… four… That’s it. And again…”
Slowly, she got herself under some semblance of control. “What’s happening?” she asked in a small voice.
“The colour thing?” he asked. “That’s, like, normal. Um… it’s normal for me. I perceive sound and touch as colour. It’s called synesthesia. It’s not hurting you or anything, it’s just a kind of… quirk.”
Spoiler cupped a hand in front of her mouth, as if she could somehow catch a handful of her own voice. “This is really fucking wierd. Is it like this for you all the time?” she asked incredulously.
“Pretty much,” Robin shrugged. “Some days I notice more than others.”
Spoiler rolled her too-built shoulders uncomfortably. “Arg, I really hate the yellow green feeling. It feels revolting.”
“Yeah, that’s pain,” Robin sighed. “You’ve probably strained something. Swinging from a line the right way takes practice.”
Spoiler was suddenly glowering at him.
“What?”
“You just called me Stephanie,” she snarled.
“Dude, it’s not like you sleep in the uniform,” Robin snorted. “Plus, your mom wasn’t happy with the language I used when I woke up and looked down and she told me so with your full name - Stephanie Gwendolyn Brown. Multiple times.”
Spoiler lunged at him. “What did you do to my mom, asshole!”
“Hey, hey!” Robin fended her off. “I didn’t do shit to Crystal. She left for her shift, same as usual. Relax, I didn’t tell her anything about this,” Robin waved at the purple costume. “Number one, I didn’t know at that point and number two, how the fuck would I even explain it anyway?”
She let him go, face red. “Fuck! So… who are you then?” she shifted uncomfortably.
“Sorry, that’s classified,” Robin said, grinning cheerfully.
“So wait, you get to know who I am but I don’t get to know who you are?”
“Them’s the breaks.”
“That’s unfair!” Spoiler tugged futilely at the domino mask. Robin wished her luck and definitely didn’t let his eyes stray towards the sprayer of glue solvent tucked into the utility belt. “How is that remotely fair?”
“Dude, we have literally switched bodies,” Robin retorted. “Fair is out the window, along with sense and sanity.”
She looked at him furiously for a moment, then sagged. “I want this to be over now.”
“No shit,” Robin agreed. He shifted uncomfortably as well, trying to adjust the… torso region without actually touching it.
Spoiler looked at him oddly. “Why aren’t you wearing a bra?”
Robin stared at her. “How the fuck can you tell?” He was padded, okay? For his fragile sanity, he was really fucking padded.
Spoiler snorted. “Dude, any lady with eyes could tell. Lucky for you it’s not my time of the month. Explaining my tampon method to a random guy is not on my bucket list.”
Robin bluescreened. “Fuck,” he said in a horrified tone of one peering into the seventh circle of hell.
Spoiler laughed at him. “Seriously, though, what the fuck is this?”
“Magic,” Robin replied.
“Magic,” Spoiler gaped at him. “Right,” she said flatly. “Magic is real, of course. Of fucking course. Why not? How the hell did you know that?” she demanded.
“Because assuming there’s even technology that can do this,” Robin shrugged. “It’d be either really short range and you or I would’ve actually seen what hit us, or hella long range. I haven’t noticed anyone else wandering around saying they’re in the wrong body, have you?”
Spoiler looked thoughtful. “No,” she realised. “Everyone I’ve seen has been… pretty normal.”
“Right, plus,” Robin shook Spoiler’s phone. “I think that’d be making the news as well. But it’s not, so this shit isn’t system wide. As far as I can tell, it’s just us.”
“Are you seriously telling me we’ve been cursed?” Spoiler gaped. “And when I say we I mean you because that’s not the kind of attention I draw.”
“I don’t know,” Robin admitted grudgingly. “Maybe. The only way to know is to find the asshole that did and ask them, politely or impolitely. But I don’t know how to track a magician. Magic’s fucking wierd, it doesn’t play by the rules.”
“Are you telling me there’s nothing we can do?” Spoiler said, voice rising with every word. “I have to fix this before my mom finds out!”
“Yes. Well, maybe. We’ll have to call in an expert,” Robin said. “B knows some magic users who might be able to help.”
“So,” Spoiler said impatiently. “What are you waiting for? Give the Bat dude a call!”
Robin made a face. “I can’t.”
“Oh, we are so not playing that fucking game!” Spoiler declared. “You are not weaselling out of fixing this mess because you don’t want Batman to know you were out and about! Man up and call him!”
Robin stared at her. “How did you know that?”
“Seriously? You were shot in the chest with a fucking arrow,” Spoiler held up three fingers. “Three weeks ago. And if the yellow-orange thingie I’m getting from your chest is pain, then I don’t think you’re all healed up yet. My mom wouldn’t even let me go to school if I was hurt that bad. No way the Bat lets you swing from the rooftops injured. Unless he’s an abusive asshole,” she narrowed his eyes at him. “He’s not, right?”
Robin grumbled, but had to concede her points were sound.
“So fuck getting grounded,” Spoiler rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty sure you’d prefer being grounded with your dick intact than counting down to my time of the month. Fucking call him!”
“No, you don’t get it,” Robin sighed. “I can’t. B’s not on-planet right now. He’s got some intergalactic mission something-or-other on. I couldn’t get a message to him with the equipment I got, and besides, it wouldn’t matter anyway, because it’d likely take days to get a reply.”
She stared at him, mouth wide open. “Holy fuck. How crazy is your fucking life? You said all that like it’s fucking normal. Like, your dad’s just on a boring-ass business trip.”
Robin shrugged. Honestly, his tolerance for weird couldn’t be measured at this point.
Spoiler slumped. “So… what can we do? We need help here! Can’t you call that other guy? The blue stripey one. I’ve seen him helping you out before.”
Robin balked. “Fuck that noise. I am not calling in fucking Nightwing. I’ll actually take the time-of-the-month lecture rather than call that fucker,” he snapped. “Besides, he’s out east right now, with the Titans. He wouldn’t be of much use either,” he added more reasonably. Flamebird had gone with him, of course. For a second, Robin felt lost. It would have been nice text Cass. She wouldn’t have been able to help, probably, but it would have made him feel better.
“What is the deal with you and Nightwing anyway?” Spoiler asked curiously. “You sound like you’ve got a full on hate boner for the guy.”
Robin made a face. “He’s got one for me,” he retorted, aggrieved. “But fuck all that, anyway. He’s not in a position to be useful.”
“Well, then who the fuck can we ask?” Spoiler threw up his hands, exasperated. “I haven’t got any connects in this world, except for you and Sparrow. I don’t think Sparrow can help us either!”
“Sparrow’s at home,” Robin stated. The kid damn well better be, he added in his head. The little midget usually got his jollies stalking Batman and Robin; with Robin (allegedly) out of commission and B off world, Robin was fervently hoping the kid took the opportunity for some time off. He didn’t like the idea of Sparrow taking it upon himself to go wandering alone in Gotham. Sure, he had some ace medical skills, but his street savvy was way down the wrong end of the genius-o-meter.
“Then we’re...arg,” Spoiler poked her ear. “How do you turn off the stupid beeping?”
Robin frowned. “Has it been doing that the whole time?”
“Every couple of minutes, feels like. It’s annoying! Did I hit a fucking self destruct button or something?”
“Someone’s trying to comm you, doofus,” Robin snorted. “What colour is the chime? Orange? Purple? Green? Blue?” His voice dropped to a sullen sound on blue. He hated that blue chime, because it meant Nightwing was on the line. He’d been getting a lot of them lately, for some reason.
“Uh… it’s kind of a red colour,” Spoiler made a face. “Is that bad?” She asked as Robin started swearing.
“It’s Sparrow, that suicidal idiot,” Robin growled. “I told him to stay in, little creeper. Look, I don’t have time to go through our comm protocol with you. Utility belt, left back quarter, there’s a pouch there. See it?”
“There’s pouches everywhere,” Spoiler muttered. “Okay, got it.”
“Okay, hook your thumb behind it, there should be a loop behind it,” Robin instructed. “When you yank the flap to open it you have to pull down on that loop when you lift the flap, okay? Seriously, do that, or it’ll zap you.”
It zapped her anyway. “Arg!” she shook her hand. “How do you deal with all this… stuff?” she complained.
“Training,” Robin shrugged. “Two more tries before you fry everything. Be careful. Push and pull in the same motion.”
Spoiler gingerly did as requested. This time the pouch popped open. “Got it!” she yanked out “Is this a cell phone?”
“It’s a lot of things,” Robin shrugged. “Mostly though, it’s meant to be a redundant backup in case both my comm system and my wrist computer get fried or damaged. Hold it up to your eye; it won’t unlock without a retinal scan. Oh, but hit the little button at the edge of your domino first, that’ll retract the whiteout lenses.”
Spoiler did so, blinking rapidly as her eyeballs found air, and held the phone up to get scanned. “Now it’s asking for a password?”
“Type in Les Miserables,” Jason spelled out the capitals for her.
“What the hell? It’s asking for a vocal confirmation now!” Spoiler gaped once she’d passed that.
“A Jellicle cat is a magical cat,” Robin recited, grinning. “Tick tock, you’ve only got twenty second to confirm or you start from scratch.”
“Jesus. A Jellicle cat is a magical cat!” Spoiler said into the phone. “Finally! It’s unlocked. How paranoid are you people?”
“Dude, you should see the people we go after,” Robin nabbed the phone and tapped his way into the auxiliary communication system, which was another bunch of passcodes. “B attracts crazies. But the thing about crazies is, crazy doesn’t mean stupid. And we have a bunch of information stored in the Bat Cloud. Skeleton keys into various systems, like water, power, that kind of thing. Passcodes for buildings and banks. Stuff we need when everything goes to shit and we have to get into places to save people. Lots of other, classified shit too. Like, actually government classified. Think about what the average Gotham villain might do with that kind of info and then call us paranoid.”
“Huh,” Spoiler said slowly. “I never thought about it like that.”
“Here we go,” Robin tapped in a contact. “I’ll put it on speaker. Oi, Sparrow! What was our deal about going out alone, you trouble magnet?” he demanded when it connected.
He realised that he wasn’t speaking from the right mouth almost at the same moment as a tentative “... Robin?” came down the line.
That decidedly was not Sparrow’s voice.
“Who is this and where did you get the phone?” Robin demanded in a tone of such total menace that Spoiler actually leaned back in surprise.
“Who am I? Who is this?” the voice asked, sounding bewildered. “Spoiler, is that you?”
Robin and Spoiler both looked at each other. Robin was getting a sinking feeling.
“Hey, uuuh,” Spoiler broke in. “Can you hear me?”
“... Robin?”
“Yeah, um, that’s me,” Spoiler fumbled. “Tell me how we met.”
“You were chained up by your wrists in a warehouse with Batman,” the strange voice answered promptly. “I rescued you.”
“Hey, we did the punching,” Robin muttered. “Let’s not go nuts.”
“Spoiler? Is that… wait, did you guys get body swapped too?”
Yep, Robin thought dismally. Thought so. His sinking feeling was right on the money. “Yeah, yeah we did. So I got a question for you, you trouble seeking mini-missle; one, how the hell did you end up switched and two, who the fuck is currently in your body?”
“The stupid idiot… mage or whatever they’re called is in my body! I’m in his!”
There was a faint ‘hey! I’m not an idiot!’ in the background.
Robin felt his adrenaline surge. “What the fuck? You’re actually with him now? Where are you? Is he restrained? Does he have a weapon? Give the deets, Sparrow, now!” he barked crisply.
“I’m fine. Well, I’m fine, looked at in a certain way. He did have a weapon, but I have it now. A knife. And he IS an idiot who doesn’t know the first thing about sanskrit!” Sparrow yelled that bit, likely over his shoulder going by the wildly changing volume levels.
“I researched!” came a higher pitched tone in the distance, Sparrow’s usual crisp diction sounding whiny and aggrieved. “I checked it!”
“With what, Google Translate? How the heck did you mistake bhaaga - ‘inheritance’ for bhajita - ‘shared’? Or Aasaya for ‘blood’! Asrij is ‘blood’! Aasaya means ‘receptacle of blood’! And don’t even get me started on mistaking agamayati and agratah! Agamayati means ‘let it come!’ Agratah is ‘let two go before me’! They’re not even remotely alike!”
“Sparrow, focus!” Robin broke in. “I need your location, now!”
“We’re in Burnley,” Sparrow told him. “In Mister I’ve-never-even-seen-Sanskrit-in-my-life’s mom’s basement. He was trying to summon an ancient god to... actually, I’m not sure what the hell it was for. I just know he needed a blood sacrifice.”
“And you were it,” Spoiler said.
“Uh… sort of.”
Robin’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean sort of?”
“Well, I was out and about because, you know, I try to deliver insulin and other meds to people who need them and check on the street kids in case they need anything and there was this kid, right, Gem, and she was being grabbed and hauled into a van and I couldn’t just let some weirdo take her, could I? So, um, I kind of jumped in the van and Mister not-even-unilingual here tried to do the ritual on Gem but, um, it didn’t really work so, um… I kind of volunteered to do it instead?”
Robin sucked in a breath. “You unbelievable idiot! You complete and utter failure point of common sense! What the hell were you thinking, you hell-treading, thrice cursed, trouble seeking oompa loompa? Were you dropped on your tiny little brain at birth? What the fuck kind of dwavish architect of chaos are you, you moronic midget?!”
Spoiler nodded in sheer appreciation. “Wow. I mean, I know that’s not actually me, but I’m impressed.”
“Are you done? Because it actually gets a lot worse,” Sparrow said miserably in some random guy’s voice.
“What? What?! You volunteered for a ritual sacrifice, you halfwit! How could it be worse?”
“It wasn’t a death ritual!” Sparrow protested, like there was some kind of difference. “Just a little blood. Only, like, the guy whose body I’m in used his Dad’s knife and, well, his father actually is a working magic practitioner, with presumably a WORKING knowledge of SANSKRIT!” Sparrow was clearly yelling over his shoulder at some would-be failson mage. “And, um, well,… theknifeheusedissortofcursed,” Sparrow blurted.
Robin’s eyes narrowed in Spoiler’s face. “Cursed. How. Exactly?”
Sparrow coughed. “Um… anyone who’s cut by it… um, the wounds don’t heal? They kind of just… bleed. Um… until you die.”
Robin sucked in another breath.
“But! Technically I’m fine right now,” Sparrow rushed in before he could start yelling again. “I mean, um, the body I’m in is a-okay. A bit flabby, I guess? Shut up!” Sparrow yelled when a voice rose in protest in the background. “You are! I’m in it, I should know! But anyway,” Sparrow hastily got back on track. “Um… the mage guy, Emmanuel? Um, he’s in my body. And um… I’m doing everything I can to stop the bleeding but, um, I can’t really, because, you know, curse. It’s bleeding slow, but it, um, won’t stop no matter what I do.”
Robin sucked in yet another breath. His voice came out flatter than a tabletop. “Location?”
“Look, strange is it may sound, I’m not your biggest problem right now,” Sparrow replied. “The kid, Gem? You need to find her. She jumped in at the end of the ritual, which is, I think how everything got so messed up. That and this idiot’s pronunciation issues. The spell was supposed to, according to him, make him into the avatar of a god, so he could use some ancient gods powers for one night; or, trade places with a god for a night, or something.”
“Wait, how the fuck did it get so messed up that we all got switched?” Spoiler asked incredulously. “Robin and I weren’t even there!”
“Yeah, but it’s a blood ritual. And three weeks ago you and I both shared blood with Robin, remember? We transfused after the arrow incident. I think he accidentally made it so everyone who shared blood would get switched. Which would have been fine in an age pre-transfusions but nowadays lots of people can share blood. Sort of.” Sparrow sounded worried. “Remember how I said he tried on Gem and it didn’t work on her? Well, she got cut with the knife too, didn’t she?” there was a sound in the background. “Shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about! Um, so, she’s bleeding to death too,” Sparrow went on talking to them. “Only she doesn’t know it. And, um, also… for the record? The ritual kind of worked. The god did manage to pass through… whatever it was they had to pass through to get to here.”
“How do you know that?” Spoiler asked. “There’s not, like, a glowy person in there with you, is there?”
“No. But when Gem interrupted the ritual and grabbed this idiot’s spellbook or whatever it was, the ritual went all wrong. She disappeared… shut UP, I’m talking! When I say she disappeared I mean she vanished, in, like, a flash of light. Manny thinks that Gem jumped in right at the exact wrong moment and the god-person whatever plopped into her. So, um, I’m not sure where she is right now and we have to find her, fast! Before she or my body bleed out. Manny how long have we got?” Sparrow asked.
“I don’t fucking know!” Manny moaned in Sparrow’s voice. “I never even knew Mom got all this cursed shit in the divorce! Probably not very! Oh god, I’m gonna die!” he wailed
“I’m going to die,” Sparrow corrected grimly. “It’s my damn body! Robin, I could really use some help here!”
“Hang on a minute,” Robin said, thinking furiously. “You said that moron’s dad is a practitioner, yeah? Like an actual, serious one?”
“Yeah. Apparently he lost most of his magic… junk in a recent divorce, but he apparently knows his stuff, since everything in the book technically worked. He used to run one of those esoteric little new age shops in Robbinsville.”
“Dude, why do we care about this idiot’s father?” Spoiler hissed. “Sparrow and that kid might be dying!”
“You want to fix this, right?” Robin hissed back. “Plus, we’ll probably need a practitioner to break the curse and help them anyway and I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t trust this Manny asshole to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ and get it right.”
“Hey! I heard that!” came an indignant voice in Sparrow’s pitch.
“Good! Where’s your fucking dad, then? Or do you want to die tonight? Would he be at the shop?” Gotham shopkeepers kept weird hours, Robin couldn’t imagine a magical shopkeeper would feel the need to conform.
Silence. Then a sullen. “No. He lost the store to Mom too. She took everything. She was kinda shitty with him. I don’t know where the fuck he is. Like I’d want to. He fucked off after the papers were signed.”
Robin blew out a breath. “Alright, so we got three jobs. One, we need to keep Sparrow’s body alive. Sparrow, I’m gonna give you an address. There’s a free clinic in the Bowery you need to get to. The doc there… doesn’t ask too many questions. Her name is Leslie. Leslie Thomkins. Tell her I sent you. She’ll hook Manny there up to a blood pack, or something. Can you make it? Be honest.”
“We should be able to manage,” Sparrow confirmed. “It’s not gushing. I’ll just pay for an Uber or something. I’m pretty sure Manny doesn’t want to ask his mom for a ride.”
“Fuck no!” Came from the distance.
“Right, okay. That’s your job. Keep Manny and your dumbass body alive. That’s all I want you to focus on. Two, we need to find that jerk’s father. I’ll call in some backup for that; someone who's good at finding people. Three, we need to find this kid. Gem was the name? Do you have a description?”
“Four feet seven,” Sparrow replied promptly. “About ten years old. Shoulder length brown hair, latin American, hazel eyes, wearing a pink dress and white runners.”
“Does the pink dress have a peony pattern on it?” Spoiler broke in. “Like, pink and white? Because I saw her! Right before the thing happened! God, I never even thought of that ‘til now!”
“I did too,” Robin pointed at her. “Right before we all got switched around. We must have been dragged to the place the ritual was right where it went wrong. Spiritually, at least. Good. So we all know who we’re looking for. You and I,” Robin pointed at Spoiler. “Are gonna go and try to find her. You got all that, Sparrow?”
“Got it,” Sparrow replied, sounding relieved.
“Check in,” Robin said sternly. “Every fifteen minutes. If I have to call you I’m gonna be pissed, understand?”
Sparrow snorted in his stranger’s voice. “You sound like Batman.”
“Fuck you, and I’m hanging up now,” Robin retorted and duly did so. “Little jackass,” he muttered fondly. “Where does he get off, comparing me to that emotionally constipated furry?”
“Well, to be fair…” Spoiler observed.
“No comments from the peanut gallery,” Robin cut her off.
“Hey, you said you were gonna call in someone to help find Mr Manny-Moron-Mage’s dad. I thought you didn’t have anyone to call,” Spoiler said accusingly.
“There is one,” Robin grimaced. “And good news; it’s a fucking world expert in finding unusual people.” He didn’t look happy about making the call though as he accessed another comm line through the phone.
It became clear after it connected.
Once he explained the situation, Batgirl laughed at him for ten solid minutes non-stop.
“Let’s go, Spoiler. We’re on the clock,” Robin muttered, face red as sauce once he’d managed to extract himself from all the excruciating explanations Batgirl had demanded. At least she’d agreed with the plan.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Spoiler said ruefully, rising to her feet, ungainly in her new height. “I was having a peaceful night off. Next thing I know I’m in the wrong fucking body because of a shitty magical ritual gone awry and now I have to save the sacrificial victims’ lives before they become actual sacrifices and to do that I have to find some kid who apparently has godlike powers and is wondering around Gotham, dripping blood. What happened,” she tilted her head up to the heavens in despair. “What the hell happened to my life? Seriously! This does not happen to me!”
Robin smirked. “It’s just another night on the town for me.” He picked up the grapple gun, making a face at how big and ungainly it was in his now-smaller hands. “It’s Gotham. Get ready, because I’m about to show you the right way to swing between buildings. Step One: How Not To Die.”
Okay, he was still internally freaking out about being in the wrong body. But tracking someone? Hunting them? This was one area where Robin excelled, even over Nightwing, maybe even over Batman. Tracking was his thing.
He fired the line, and got ready to get on the trail.
A trail of blood.