Gifts From the Sea (rough draft)
A Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Inspired by breezy-cheezy (Medli45)
Summary: No Capes AU where the Batkids are merpeople and Bruce is their human adoptive dad.
Author's notes: Straight-up warning that I may never finish this. As soon as I saw Breezy's adorable sketch of Bruce holding little mer-Dick in his arms, this plot bunny started jumping up and down screaming at me, but aside from sheer current inspiration, it's not a high priority.
I don't know anything about what it's like to work at an aquarium, waterpark, or zoo, and I did not do research for this, because I know from past experience that I'm just not going to find the information I need. My research was basically Free Willy, childhood visits to Sea World, and a nonfiction book I read a while ago about orcas in captivity.
Part 1
Bruce thought it was odd that part of his uniform included armor. What would an intern at the Coast City Aquatic Zoo need with a protective layer under his polo shirt and khaki shorts?
Then he forgot to keep wondering about it, because they were walking into the pool area and he was about to see an actual mermaid. Or, more accurately, merboy. The creature's parents had been killed in some sort of accident at a marine park, and the calf, called Dick by his trainers, had been transferred to CCAZ for rehabilitation and eventual display. Bruce had never had a particular interest in mer, but they were still rare and elusive creatures, thought to be myth up until a few short decades ago, so his interest was greatly piqued.
He belatedly realized that the gathered employees' cheers were for him, in response to his supervisor's announcement that one of Bruce's duties would be to assist in the administering of medical treatment. "Gonna put these big strong arms of yours to good use," one of the women said appreciatively, squeezing Bruce's biceps. Weirdly but refreshingly, she didn't seem to mean it in a flirtatious way.
"All right, Bruce, here's how it works," the supervisor, Mark, started to explain. "We've already shut all the gates - doesn't matter which section of the pool he's in, we just block off the others - so that limits the field a lot. Now we're going to skim with a net to catch him, you'll eventually be helping with that, but don't worry about it today. Once we've gotten him on the platform-" He gestured at the surface extending out from the pool wall, only a couple of inches submerged, and at the padded board being held in place by a team of four people. "-and more or less onto the restraining board, your job is going to be to help hold him down while we get him strapped in. Then you can chill for a bit; Jenny and Gustav will apply the medication, and we have to give it fifteen minutes to sink in. Then you'll help hold him again while we get him unstrapped, and we'll tell you when to let go. That's it! You got all that?"
"Yes," Bruce said apprehensively, thinking, 'Strapped down?'
"All right, people," Mark said, sounding simultaneously gleeful and rueful, "here we go!"
Bruce watched as a team of people started moving a net through the water. At some point, he realized that the pool wasn't as empty as it looked; a faint blob that he'd taken for some sort of hatch at the bottom of the pool eventually began to move and grow with decreased distance, and he realized with a little excited flutter that it must be the merboy.
Once the net tightened and the creature broke the surface of the water, Bruce's initial expectations were shattered. The animal was clearly terrified, screaming and thrashing wildly the entire time it was towed toward the platform and dragged up onto it.
"BRUCE!" several people bellowed.
Startled, he leaped into position, numbly following orders and pressing down hard on the calf's upper body, several people on either side of him working just as hard to restrain the frantically struggling creature.
Someone farther down managed to get a strap around the middle of Dick's tail, and there was a shout of triumph. The bottommost portion of the net was flipped back, and another strap was secured around the thinnest part of the mer's tail, just above the fins. The middle strap was removed and Dick bucked hard, but the intense pressure on his top half prevented him from moving even an inch.
More of the net was cleared and a strap was secured around the calf's hips, just below where scales transitioned to skin. "Almost there!" someone cried, and yet more straps bound the merboy's upper body, this time without bothering to clear the net first. Bruce's companions all let go with sighs of relief, though Bruce himself was the last to let go, feeling so horrified that it was hard to remember that it was time to move.
The little mer, completely restrained now, went still, his piercing screams shifting to an endless keen.
"Gives you your workout for the day, huh!" someone laughed, elbowing Bruce playfully.
Bruce did not respond, his eyes riveted to the child he had just helped terrorize. The poor creature lay completely helpless as the two vets worked on his tail. Bruce, finally managing to tear his gaze away from Dick's terrified sapphire eyes, finally noticed that there was a patch of damaged, discolored scales on the mer's tail, which the vets were working some sort of ointment into.
The tail fins twitched continuously. The tail itself was mostly green, with a plume of red in the front and hints of yellow scales peeking out from the underside. The calf's skin was inhumanly pale, almost gray, and slimy with a protective secretion. Dick's hair was black with subtle, natural blue highlights, his irises more bright and piercing than any human color. His ears were large and came to multiple points; more fins, hard to see in his current position, were under his upper arms and his hips; there was translucent webbing between his fingers; no genitals were visible. Gills on the sides of his neck worked furiously.
"Most of the calves are some combination of red, yellow, and green," someone chatted to Bruce as they waited for the fifteen-minute timer to go off. "They change colors when they get older, though. This one's parents were mostly black and blue, so he'll probably be a dark beauty when he gets older." He reached out and patted Dick's cheek. The animal paused its keening long enough to snap at the man's hand with dagger-sharp teeth, but he jerked his arm back in time, laughing.
"Paul! Don't do that when he's not muzzled!" someone scolded him.
Bruce felt physically sick. This was not what he had expected when he had taken this internship. The animal had no idea why they were tormenting it (him? It was extremely difficult not to anthropomorphize something that looked so human from the waist up), no idea that they were trying to help him. 'He can't even see what they're doing to his tail, of course he doesn't know.'
The timer went off. "Whoo!" someone cheered.
"All right, honeybunch, you'll aaalll done!" someone babytalked at the calf.
Bruce was called upon to help hold it down again as the straps were removed. As soon as Dick's tail was free, he started flailing wildly, and people were shouting as they grabbed the board and struggled to strategically take hold of the net. "All right, let 'im go!"
As soon as the merboy was fully released, he plunged into the deeper water and shot off, vanishing into a corner so deep that he looked like a speck from the surface.
"And that's it!" Mark said cheerfully to Bruce, clapping him on the back. "Think you can handle that once a day?"
"Yes," Bruce said numbly. He was led away and shown the rest of his tasks, and it was hours before he felt even halfway like himself again.
o.o.o
Bruce went to his new apartment that night exhausted. He couldn't stop thinking about the merboy. 'Poor thing. Poor thing. Poor thing...'
He looked up news stories about the marine park incident and found leaked footage of the disastrous performance. The first ten minutes had gone according to plan, but at one point, the adult male, called John by his trainers, had refused to obey a command, even for the sake of the treat dangling insistently above the water. He and his mate, Mary, had started swimming around and around the pool in agitation. The human performers, trying to salvage the show, improvised by switching their attention to the calf, but after only a couple of half-hearted responses to the commands, he swam to his mother and ignored the rest.
John suddenly rammed the glass wall of the tank, prompting brief screams and then laughter from the audience. The noises changed to concern when John rammed again and again, blood starting to drift through the water.
Frantic employees eventually managed to snag the merman with a catch pole, but then Mary went berserk. She leaped straight onto the concrete, seized a man's leg, and bit into it. When the mermaid yanked her head back, a sizeable chunk of the screaming man's flesh came along with her teeth, and blood sprayed through the air.
Other employees started shooting tranquilizer guns; an audience member drew a handgun and started firing (Bruce could barely watch). One bullet hit Mary, who shrieked, and another hit one of the employees. John, who'd been accidently freed in the chaos, went into a frenzy, attacking people and drawing blood, and one of the employees started bashing at his head with a metal pole.
In the end, according to public news reports, two humans and both the adult mer had died, the merman from blunt force trauma and all the others from blood loss. The mer calf and several people had been injured. A group of audience members had filed a lawsuit, and Dick had hastily been transferred to Coast City Aquatic Zoo.
'He watched his parents being violently killed, he lost his familiar environment, now he's in a new place with strangers chasing him and tying him down every day...' Bruce's heart almost felt like it was bleeding in sympathy.
o.o.o
Bruce numbly went through his morning routine, full of both anticipation and dread. He longed to see the merboy again, but at the same time, he felt sick just thinking about what he was expected to do to the poor thing. Every day. Wasn't there a less traumatic way to treat the animal? Perhaps it wasn't reasonable to rely on daily sedation, but they didn't even- The creature couldn't even see. Bruce knew he would be terrified and furious if monsters kept tying him down to do mysterious, uncomfortable things to his legs. 'If there was a way to make him understand, maybe he wouldn't be so distressed...'
The second morning started out almost exactly the way the first one had, but now, Bruce knew what to expect. Here came the merboy, breaking the water shrieking and struggling, biting at the net but unable to shred the tough synthetic fibers even with his sharp fangs.
Bruce surged along with the others to grab Dick as he was hauled onto the platform, but instead of pinning the calf to the restraining board, Bruce instead wrapped the merboy in his arms. His hands encircled Dick's wrists, firm enough to keep hold despite the slick protective layer over the calf's skin but he was careful not to squee. He crossed Dick's arms over his own chest in the restraining hold he'd learned in college back when he still thought he wanted to be a teacher.
The humans yelled at Bruce and the merboy writhed and screamed, but after a second, one eye sort of rolled back to stare at Bruce, confusion mixed in with the fear and anger.
"It'll be okay, chum," Bruce told him, ignoring everyone else who was shouting at him to "PUT IT DOWN!" A couple had kept their heads and were strapping the tail in place even though the animal wasn't completely prone. "Just relax, no one wants to hurt you."
Dick let loose a long shriek so high-pitched that Bruce winced, but he didn't let go. He transferred both the calf's wrists to one of his hands so he could carefully unwrap the net, which fell away because it had already been cleared from the tail.
"Can you HOLD him?" Jenny demanded.
"Yes, I've got him, carry on."
After a pause, Dick started writhing again as best he could when he could barely move his body, though silently now. He threw his head back, unsuccessful in hitting Bruce anywhere important, then twisted his head to bite. He couldn't get at Bruce from a good angle, but managed to shred a bit of his shirt.
Someone started yelling for a muzzle, but Bruce ordered them down. "It's fine, I have my armor on, he's not getting through." He freed one of his hands again, this time to carefully scrub his fingers through the merboy's hair. The strands were very smooth, not quite as slimy as the calf's skin but still leaving a residue on Bruce's.
Dick paused, chest heaving, staring at Bruce in disbelief. He whimpered and knocked his head back into Bruce's hand, not violently, so he scratched a little harder. "It's okay, chum. Look, they're treating your tail so it will heal and get better." He pointed, and Dick stared down at the vets' hands on his tail. He watched, completely still and silent, his eyes huge, until their ministrations were finished. Then they stepped back and set the timer, and he started writhing again, which mostly consisted of straining his tail uselessly against the straps and knocking his head back against Bruce.
"Fifteen minutes, chum, just fifteen minutes and then you can go back out and play..." He tried the hair-caressing again. It made the merboy whimper, but he butted his head against Bruce's hand every time he paused, so Bruce supposed the mer would rather be petted than not.
"It's so quiet," someone remarked in disbelief. Everyone was standing at a prudent distance from Bruce and his not-screaming captive.
"I don't think he ever knew what we were doing to his tail," Bruce said, trying to sound diplomatic. "I thought maybe if he could see it..."
"You're going to need to come to my office as soon as we're done here," Mark said grimly.
"All right," Bruce murmured, having the sinking feeling that he was going to be fired.
Dick whimpered again rolled back his head to stare at Bruce with huge, desperate sapphire eyes.
"Just eleven more minutes and thirteen seconds, chum, look," Bruce said, pointing. He started counting down with the seconds on the timer. "Four, three, two, one zero...look, now only ten minutes. Fifty-six, fifty-five, fifty-four..."
The merboy eventually started crying, hopeless soft wailing sobs as he clung to Bruce. Everyone was staring in astonishment, because apparently it had been thought that mer couldn't shed tears and now they were being decidedly proven wrong. "Hey, Dickie...hey...it's okay, it will be over soon. Dick, can you look at me?"
After some more coaxing, Dick lifted his wet eyes to Bruce's. "Hey. Hey there, chum. No one here wants to make you sad, okay? We all care about you, and we want your tail to get better. My name is Bruce."
Wet puppy eyes continued to stare at him.
"Bruce," Bruce repeated, indicating himself. "That's my name. You are Dick, and I am Bruce."
After a long pause, to Bruce's astonishment, the little mouth whispered, "B'ssss."
The reaction of most of the humans was utter shock. Bruce himself was surprised, but had no basis of comparison and so had no beliefs to be shattered and was simply pleased. "Oh, wow, good! Good job. Bruce, that's me. Hello, Dick. It's nice to meet you."
"...B'ssss."
"That's right. Bruce, me."
"B'ssss...B'ssss..." Then he made a very strange sound, a piercing cry that started low and rapidly rose. Dick looked at Bruce again and desperately made a short string of dolphin-like clicks.
"Wow. You're pretty amazing, Dick." He glanced back at the timer and saw that there was less than a minute left. "Oh, look, almost done, Dickie. Thirty-seven, thirty-six, thirty-five..." He was extremely relieved when he was able to announce, "...three, two, one! Look, chum, it's over. We're going to unstrap you and then you can go swim again, okay?"
The calf looked like he couldn't believe it when the straps were removed. He clung to Bruce in terrified uncertainty, and after a moment, Bruce picked him up in his arms and waded to the edge of the platform. He leaned down, starting to set the merboy in the pool. Dick suddenly slapped him with his tail and dove into the water, shooting to a far corner.
Bruce felt absolutely exhausted and absolutely elated all at once.
"Office. Now," Mark barked, and Bruce sighed a little as he trudged off.
He was suspended. Most likely fired, but the merboy's condition would be evaluated and if Dick was found to have suffered harm from Bruce's actions, the CCAZ would consider filing charges.
"You're an intern with no field experience. You cannot handle a dangerous wild animal against instructions, for its safety and yours and ours, and the well-being of the park. What you did today was very serious, Bruce, and you might have hurt Dick."
"I never meant to hurt him. He was obviously frightened, and I-"
"You realize you could have killed him if anything had gone wrong?"
"That was never my intention."
"I'm sure, but I cannot impress upon you how inappropriate and dangerous your actions were."
Bruce, knowing nothing he said would help, struggled to keep his mouth shut.
He spent the next day at home, not allowed to go to work, and found himself doing as much research as he could on mer. Not much was known about them, especially ones in the wild. Bruce listened to sound clips of mer noises, which were all very dolphin- and whale-like, but not one of them made the more human verbalization that Dick had when he'd said Bruce's name. And, although it was an unreliable source, a question-and-answer wiki page reached a consensus that mer couldn't cry, which Bruce now knew was obviously wrong.
He also looked up the natural secretions of mer and started researching substances that might not be harmful to their flesh. He had noticed, as he had been caressing Dick to comfort him, that his comparatively dry fingers had seemed to leach the moist layer off of the mer's skin, and he had started feeling a noticeable increase of friction. If he could find some sort of safe oil or cream, he'd be able to stroke the mer in a way that was more safe and comfortable. 'Not that they'll ever let me see him again...'
He got a call around noon. "Bruce," Mark said brusquely, "come back to work as usual tomorrow morning, we want to try something."
"Did something happen?"
"No." The man hung up before Bruce could inquire further.
TBC