Baby's Day Out

[dragonflybeach]

Baby's Day Out

word count: 2575
rating: PG-13
characters/pairing: Sam, Dean, Rowena, human!Impala
warnings: language, reminders of the fact Baby knows too much about the boys. Set after S12E17, but really doesn't contain any spoilers.
summary: When the Winchesters won't let her have her way, Rowena casts a spell on their car.

A/N - yes, I've seen the tumblr posts suggesting that Ian Somerhalder or Gina Torres should play a human Impala. But Baby is 50 years old. And probably very sassy.



Witches, man.

They're unsanitary. They spew bodily fluids. They sacrifice people. They steal years from people's lives. They use really gross shit to power their spells. They turn their enemies into hamsters. They make flying monkeys, for Chuck's sake.

After a lifetime of having a healthy disrepect for witches, they'd made frenemies with Rowena. She helped them out a few times, like with Amara and with Lucifer. She saved their bacon when Dean got hit with the forgetting spell.

Maybe they had gotten a little complacent in dealing with her.

But that did NOT give her the right to mess with someone's car.

Rowena had some scheme working for her own personal gain that she wanted to borrow the Black Grimoire that Sam had taken from her after the whole Loughlin/Druids thing.

To her credit, she had asked nicely to start with.

Sam said no, and Dean agreed with him, because a witch like Rowena in possession of the Book of the Damned and the Black Grimoire was just asking for trouble.

Then Rowena decided she was Wayne Brady and tried to play Let's Make a Deal.

Sam didn't go for it, and that's when Rowena lost her shit.

She screamed, she threatened, she stomped her feet like a toddler, and when none of that worked, she took off down the hall.

They followed her, of course, because nothing good could possibly come of her being loose in the bunker as angry as she was.

Dean broke into a run when he realized where she was headed, but he was still recovering from being thrown by Dagon and had been putting the heat pad on his back for the past two days. And Rowena was pretty fast for a 500 year old woman.

She got to the garage first. Dean and Sam got there just in time to see her throw a spell at the car.

There was thick dark smoke, a weird smell, and a sound like thunder.

"My Baby!" Dean shouted.

The smoke cleared, and the car was gone.

Where it had been was a guy who looked a lot like Robert Downey Jr, wearing a tan leather shirt and pants and some sort of weird black rubber shoes.

Sam pointed a gun at the guy, who rolled his eyes.

"Where's my car?" Dean screeched.

(Well, Sam said he screeched. Dean thought he asked in a completely reasonable tone of voice for someone whose car had just been witchified.)

"Oh dear." Rowena looked at the man, looked at Dean, looked at her nails, and then looked at Sam. She shrugged. "I probably need the Black Grimoire to get it back."

She flounced upstairs, leaving Sam gaping and Dean hyperventilating.

(Again, Sam said Dean was hyperventilating. Dean just needed some extra oxygen after his car disappeared.)

So leave it to Sam to ask the obvious but important questions.

"Who the fuck are you?"

The guy frowned, shook his head, hiked an eyebrow, and said "Uh, seriously? Baby. Put the gun down, Sammy."

Sam didn't put the gun down, because he had better sense than to take orders from guys in weird clothes who were conjured out of thin air by a witch.

Dean recovered enough to say "Wait. What?"

The guy rolled his eyes. "Baby. You know, that's what you've been calling me since you were a toddler?"

"She turned the car into a human?" Sam asked, and didn't lower his gun, but did relax his grip on it.

"You can't be my car." Dean said, shaking his head. "No."

Not Robert Downey plucked at his shirt with his thumb and finger, holding the fabric out so he can look at it. "Doesn't the upholstery look familiar?"

The Winchesters looked closer, and the man's clothing did have seams that gave it the same stripe pattern as 1960s General Motors seats.

Sam shifted his weight from one foot to the other and said "Dean."

"That's not my car." Dean repeated.

"She's a witch." Sam reminded him. "She may have turned your car into a human."

"She did." Not Robert Downey said with a shrug. "This is kinda weird for me too, you know."

"No." Dean shook his head, holding his hands out. "That is not my car. Baby is a she. She's not ... " he gestured at Not Robert Downey. "That."

"Actually, I've always been male." Not Robert Downey told him. "Your dad mislabeled me as 'she' and the two of you apparently just assumed he
was correct."

"How do you know my dad?" Dean asked.

"Uh, he used to drive me?" Not Robert Downey snorted.

Sam lowered the gun. "Dean, this might be the Impala."

"Baby is female!" Dean insisted.

"No, not really." Not Robert Downey said. "Apparently humans have no idea how to tell a car's gender. I am Baby. I can prove it."

"Okay, prove it." Sam did that whole "show me" thing with the head toss and shoulder shrug.

(Sam would like to interject that it's not "a thing," that everyone has gestures and body language and Dean knows this from 20 years of talking to witnesses.)

Not Robert Downey reached into his back pocket and handed Sam an army man. He then reached up the front of his shirt and held a handful of Legos toward Dean.

Sam looked back and forth between the little green army man and Not Robert Downey. Dean refused to take the Legos.

"Fine." Not Robert Downey put the Legos back in his shirt.

Dean folded his arms. "Anyone who's been in the car knows there's an army man in the ashtray and Legos down the vent. Tell me something that only Baby knows."

Not Robert Downey grinned wickedly. "The first time you jerked off in the back seat you were twelve. Sam was thirteen the first time he did it."

Sam choked and looked like he was about to swallow his tongue.

"Lucky guess." Dean said with his eyes narrowed.

"Before either of you was born, your dad was backing out of Mike's driveway and scraped the mailbox. He told your mom someone hit me in a parking lot." Not Robert Downey continued. "You busted my exhaust manifold when you got the car stuck the day the Darkness came and replaced it with one from a 1966 El Camino. When you sleep in the car, you call it Winchester Motel." He turned to Dean. "When Sam was dead and we were living in Indiana, you would come out to the garage in the middle of the night, sit behind the wheel and talk to Sam. When Dean was dead, Sam was going to drive me off a bridge, but I hit a dog instead. And there's this."

The man turned around, dropped his pants, and showed them scars in the shape of initials DW SW on the back of his thigh.

Sam turned to Dean. "Dude. I think this is the car."

"Baby." Not Robert Downey told them. "My name is Baby."

"I hate witches!" Dean shouted.

"I'm not really fond of them either." Not Robert Downey said. "But then again, it's a growing list of creatures who have pissed me off. Demon, Woman in White, Ghost Truck, Trickster, Leviathan, Time Travelling Man of Letters being chased by Time Travelling Knight of Hell, Nachzehrer, hellhound, but when I'm standing here human, I think witches go to the top of the list."

"The car is a drama queen." Sam said, throwing up his hands.

"Baby." Not Robert Downey repeated. "My name is Baby! And besides, pot, kettle. The two of you have your own drama queen moments, believe me. I've seen plenty of them."

"Do you ever shut up?" Dean asked.

"Absolutely." Not Robert Downey gave him a nasty look. "The next time you're trying to outrun a monster, or the cops, I'll just stop and be quiet. Oh wait. You have to turn me back into a car first. Do you think you should maybe go find the witch before she escapes with whatever book it is she wants?"

"I'm on it." Sam said and hurried back down the stairs.

"You, Impala." Dean pointed at Not Robert Downey.

"Baby." the man repeated yet again. "My name is Baby. My name has been Baby since 1973."

"Stay here." Dean instructed.

"Are you nuts?" Not Robert Downey asked. "What if she comes back here and turns me into a squirrel? Or a Chevette?"

"All right." Dean sighed, rolling his eyes. "Come on."

Not Robert Downey, who Dean still refused to call Baby, followed Dean downstairs to the main level of the bunker. The sounds of raised voices led them to Sam's bedroom, where Rowena had apparently managed to wreak havoc while the Winchesters had been meeting their car. Dresser drawers had been emptied, the books had been dumped on the floor, and Rowena was currently throwing things out of the closet.

Sam was telling her that the book wasn't in his room and to put things back. She was threatening to turn his bed into a dragon.

"It doesn't work that way!" Sam told her. "Dragons turn into people. You do not turn beds into dragons!"

"She turned me into a human!" Not Robert Downey said.

"Yes I did." She smirked. "Samuel, do ya really think I can't turn your bed into something dangerous? Or enna thing else in here? Did you ever think you might die strangled to death by one of those bloody flannel shirts?"

"You will NOT harm my boys!" Not Robert Downey shouted, stepping in front of the Winchesters.

Rowena seemed to realize in that moment that maybe turning the car into a human that would side with the Winchesters against her hadn't been one of her better plans.

She regained her composure within seconds, however. "I only want to borrown the Black Grimoire for a short time. Surely there must be something we can work out."

The Winchesters spoke at the same time.

"You won't bring it back!" Sam argued.

"Turn my car back into a car!" Dean demanded.

"Not in here!" Sam shouted. "We wouldn't be able to get it out!"

"Him! Baby!" Not Robert Downey said yet again. "Not 'It', not 'the car', and certainly not 'Her.'"

"Shut up, Baby!" both Winchesters shouted.

"See? Was that so difficult?" Baby asked. He turned to Rowena. "Now can you be reasonable about this and turn me back into a car so Dean can get back to rubbing me down with Armor All?"

Sam turned to look at Dean in horror.

"It wasn't weird when he was a car!" Dean insisted.

"Thank you!" Baby said, throwing his arms wide.

"Not until the Winchesters decide to be reasonable and let me have the Black Grimoire long enough to just perform one wee little spell!" Rowena crossed her arms and looked up at Sam.

"Just give her the damn book!" Baby said.

"No!" Both Winchesters answered.

"Why not?" Baby asked.

"Because there are too many spells she can use to cause too much trouble and she's got the Book of the Damned already." Sam said.

"But the spell I need is in the Black Grimoire!" Rowena told them.

"You just want the one spell?" Baby asked.

"Yes!" She held her hands out.

"Can you not just take a copy of that page or something and give her?" Baby asked Sam. "I mean, you hauled home that copier you found on Craigslist in my backseat last week."

"Would that work?" Sam asked Rowena.

She sighed. "I guess the one spell is better than nothing."

"Will you turn Baby back into my car?" Dean asked.

"Once I have the spell." Rowena said.

"No, I'll make the copy, you turn him back to a car, and then I'll give it to you." Sam told her.

"You drive a hard bargain, Samuel." Rowena said, shaking her head. "But fine. As long as I get my spell."

"You'll get your spell. But not the book." Sam insisted.

"One day, you'll need me, and then I'll want the whole book." Rowena informed them.

"We'll see." Sam shrugged. "Now, you stay here, and I'll go get the book."

He walked to the door. "Keep her in here, and keep the door shut."

"So what now?" Baby asked. "I'm always outside for this part, so I have no idea what you do when you're in with a witness or ... witch."

"We wait for Sam to go get the book out of hiding." Dean said. "Is there anything you want to do before you get changed back?"

"Nah." Baby shrugged. "I never had any desire to be a human. Let's just go for a nice long ride when she changes me back."

"Deal." Dean nodded.

They waited a few more minutes in awkward silence before Sam returned with the book.

"Show me the spell you need." He said, holding the book out to Rowena.

She laid the book on the bed and flipped pages until she found what she was looking for. "These two pages."

Sam led them to the copier, where he copied the pages Rowena had asked for and made sure they were complete and legible for her.

"Now." Sam said, looking pointedly at Baby while holding the copies out of Rowena's reach.

"Fine." Rowena said with a smile, all sweetness and light since she got what she wanted.

They went back upstairs to the garage. Baby stood back where the Impala had been parked when all of this started.

"Uh, before ... um, I just wanted to say, thank you? I mean, for always being there for us." Sam said, hunching his shoulders awkwardly. "And I'm sorry for the iPod jack?"

(Sam would like to state that there is no protocol for saying goodbye to your car in human form before he gets turned back into a car, and of course it was awkward.)

"Please, no chick flick moments." Baby said, holding his hands out.

"Dean loves chick flick moments." Sam snorted.

"Yeah, he does." Baby agreed. "And he owes me an apology for that Sucrocorp sign thing. The other wrecks weren't intentional, but that one was."

"Yeah. I'm sorry about that." Dean nodded. "Ok, bring it in."

Dean hugged Baby, who rolled his eyes, but stood stoically while Sam hugged him too.

"You're honestly hugging a car?" Rowena asked.

"He's a lot more than a car." Dean told her.

"Hey Dean, I like Texaco oil a whole lot more than the Gas'n'Sip brand." Baby said. "Sam, just downshift coming down mountains, don't ride the brakes, okay?"

Rowena rolled her eyes. "Are we finished here yet?"

"Long ride, guys." Baby said. "Lots of long rides. For a lot of years to come."

Baby nodded at Rowena, who waved her hands at him while shouting something in an unknown language.

There was smoke, and the weird smell again.

When it cleared, Baby was again a 1967 Chevy Impala.

Dean opened the door, slide behind the wheel, and smoothed his hand over the dashboard.

"Come on." Sam turned to Rowena."I'll see you out. I think they need some alone time."

Dean held his hand up over the roof, his middle finger extended upward.

Sam held his hand backward, flipping off his brother in return where Dean could see him in the mirror.

"Boys and their cars." Rowena sighed.

"Just one car." Sam said as the went upstairs.

Baby didn't do anything, but Dean is convinced that he totally approved.