Gifts From the Sea, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Batfam Bingo 2019: AU: Zoo
Part 54 (rough draft)
Wally's birthday party was held at the Hall of Justice so that the Teen Titans and the Justice League could celebrate together. Bruce was kept busy at first helping Alfred, convincing Damian that the adults hadn't meant to insult him, trying to keep track of Tim, plucking Silkie off the buffet table, refereeing the occasional squabbles that sparked between the teenagers, and rescuing Athanasia when she crankily protested being held by strangers.
Eventually, though, after everyone had eaten and the gifts had been opened and the dishes had been done, Bruce found himself lurking alone. Some people were dancing to the music. Alfred and Ravi were sitting together, having a lively conversation as Tim and Athanasia played with balloons on the floor by their feet. Damian was lecturing a fascinated-looking J'onn as they both stroked Goliath. Raven looked a little more animated than usual as she talked to Diana, and Silkie was napping in an empty punch bowl. Jason had bound his legs together and was having some kind of competition with Dick as their friends cheered them on.
Not everyone was in costume (or 'uniform,' as Damian insisted on calling their vigilante outfits), but Bruce was still struck by how extraordinary the gathering was. There were so many heroes here, and the few who didn't have awe-inspiring powers had abilities and determination that inspired just as much awe. Next to the aliens and Amazons with their incredible gifts and the speedsters with their mind-blowing ability and the Atlanteans with their mastery of the sea, there was also Roy, who had worked so hard to hone his skill in order to serve alongside the metas. There were Bruce's own children: Dick, who had not let his lack of legs hold him back from thriving on land as a superhero; Jason, who had overcome so many obstacles and earned a place for himself on the team; Tim, who continually astounded Bruce with how much he noticed and how much was able to learn in such a short time; and Damian, so young yet able to overcome every threat he faced.
Even 'the grandpas' of Titans Tower did so much to support the team, Alfred by thoroughly looking after their needs and Ravi by providing for Athanasia what Bruce himself couldn't. Surrounded by so many amazing people, Bruce felt insignificant. He knew how broken he still was. Even on good days, it took so much effort just to basically function; and on bad days, he still felt how worthless he was, how badly he had failed every single one of his children, how pointless it was to keep breathing.
Why was he even at this party? It was Wally's birthday, not a Wayne's. The Titans were Wally's friends, Barry was his uncle, and the rest of the Justice League were Barry's friends. Bruce didn't really have a place here. He'd just come because everyone else was coming, but he hadn't actually been invited. He'd been useful at the beginning, but now no one needed him, everyone was enjoying themselves without him, it was all right for now but he'd probably better leave quickly before anyone noticed him lurking and made it obvious that he'd worn out his wel-
Clark's arm came around him, warm and heavy. "What's wrong, Bruce?"
"Nothing."
The Kryptonian raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong, Bruce?" he asked again, more pointedly this time.
Bruce couldn't think how to answer right away, but Clark waited patiently. Bruce was just drawing in breath to attempt to speak when alarms started going off.
"Darn it," Clark muttered, pulling away. Everyone was hurrying to the giant screen on the wall, which had activated and was displaying information about the new threat.
"Those don't look anything like our spacecraft," Vic noted.
"They're invading," Hal said. "I recognize that fleet - we stopped their attempted takeover of a nearby solar system, but enough of them must have escaped to re-form and try again with a different target."
"Not on our watch," Clark declared. "Titans, will you fight with us?"
"Hah!" Dick barked, then signed, "Of course!"
Both teams started moving out, already discussing assignments. "Don't forget to sync your comms," Alfred called after them. Diana nodded and some of the kids waved in acknowledgment.
Bruce scooped up Tim and hurried to the main computer room. Tim slid around to Bruce's back, wrapping his arms around the man's neck and his tentacles around Bruce's torso. As soon as they reached their destination, Bruce only needed to lean a bit and Tim slithered into a chair. Bruce put on a headset and started typing rapidly.
Tim's screen was filled with feeds from the Titans' masks; the younger team was working on the ground to support evacuation efforts and serve as a secondary line of defense if the invaders managed to reach the planet's surface.
Although Bruce was keeping the Titans in his peripheral awareness, he was focused more on what the Justice League was doing in space. He had a small side screen keeping track of Alfred, Ravi, and the baby just to assure himself they were safe; another side screen was scrolling with news and social media feeds to monitor civilian reactions; and a quarter of the main screen was monitoring military reactions.
Most of Bruce's main screen was taken up by satellite footage of the alien fleet from several angles. As he watched the battle, weaknesses in the Earth warriors' defense started to become evident.
He spoke into the comms. There wasn't time to deal with argument or confusion; he spoke decisively as if taking for granted that he would be obeyed. "Wonder Girl, Starfire, Raven, Cyborg, and Kid Flash, you are needed in space. Find a way to join the League now."
"Whoo hoo, we're going to outer space!" Kid Flash cheered.
"I will summon my ship," Starfire said.
"Dick, Speedy, can you handle things without us?" Wonder Girl asked.
"Yeah, but Beast Boy should fly," Dick said.
"We're good, Wonder Girl," Speedy said. The view from his mask showed Beast Boy shifting from a horse to a bird as soon as the children he'd been carrying were lifted off his back by police officers.
"Raptor, get Goliath over here, I need a lift!" Robin called.
While Wonder Girl and the others worked on transitioning, Bruce moved on to the Justice League. "Superman, Wonder Woman, and Manhunter, all three of you work on taking out the flagship. Lantern, cover them."
The League's heavy hitters had just been haphazardly flying around, deflecting attacks and only striking offensively whenever the opportunity presented itself, which was wasting their resources and distracting them from analyzing enemy tactics. They could cause quite a lot more damage by pooling their strength, and working swiftly to take out one ship at a time by priority would be more effective in the end than trying to defend against all of them at once without dealing any focused damage.
"We can't afford to contract our team!" Aquaman protested. "They're everywhere!"
"Some of the Titans are on their way to help," Bruce said. "I'm trying to get you and Flash into a position to actually be useful."
"Hey, we're being useful!" Flash exclaimed.
Bruce made a disgusted noise. Wasting a speedster by planting him in a gunner's chair because he couldn't fight in the vacuum of space was not useful. "Work on picking off smaller ships trying to get past our defense for now. I'll have something better for you and Aquaman to do in a moment."
Under the relentless pummeling of Superman and the others, the flagship suffered several explosions and then went dead, now drifting on pure momentum rather than purposely maneuvering.
"Superman's team, push the ship toward the closest vessel and then target that red ship." Hopefully the collision would take out another major ship on its own while the superheroes were working on a third.
"The red ship that's trying to blast us into oblivion," Green Lantern grunted, struggling to maintain his shield construct, "not the one with the weird lumps."
"Affirmative," Bruce agreed.
Once the Titans arrived, Bruce added Wonder Girl and Starfire to the Justice League's heavy hitters and split them all into two teams to continue taking out the most threatening ships. While they were working on their targets, Bruce ordered, "Raven, I need you to get the speedsters onto the ships I direct you to and then extract them when they're done. Flash, Kid Flash, take scanners with you and map whatever ship you end up on, and disable any major weapons from within if you can do so with low risk."
While they were working on that, Bruce ordered, "Cyborg, if you can break into their virtual systems, copy everything you can into quarantine on one of the Justice League's computers." Whatever intel they could steal from the invaders could prove useful for the future after analysts had time to study it.
Overall, the battle lasted less than two hours. The Justice League and the Titans in space managed to keep the main body of the fleet from landing; the only alien craft that made it through the atmosphere were small fighter ships, but the air forces of various countries managed to hold their own. Civilian casualties were minimal.
The battle ended soon after a large group of Green Lanterns showed up. The rest of the fleet was quickly disabled and the invaders were rounded up and arrested. The Lanterns' mission leader spoke with the Earth defenders for a while, then the Lanterns and their prisoners left through some kind of wormhole, taking Hal with them.
"Man, I'm starving," Kid Flash groaned. Bruce texted Alfred, who replied that he would start preparing a meal immediately.
Don't even try to go grocery shopping, though, Bruce warned. The stores are going to be a mess. We ought to have enough food for a few days if no one's particularly picky.
Enough for ten teenagers, one of them a speedster; three adults; three children; an animal the size of a bus; and an insatiable larva? Alfred texted back. With respect, Master Bruce, I beg to differ.
Then take Ravi with you, I don't want you to go alone. I can watch Athanasia while you're gone.
Superman and the others flew around for a while, checking to make sure nothing had been overlooked, then started making their way back to solid ground.
Getting everything settled with the people of Earth took longer than the actual battle had. Bruce, identifying himself only as an anonymous affiliate of the Justice League, spent quite a long time talking on the phone to Diana's friend and liaison Steve Trevor, the American president, someone named Amanda Waller, and a few other officials. By the time he was able to hang up for good, Tim was asleep in his lap and the Titans had come home; Jason had plucked the baby out of her playpen at one point and carried her off somewhere.
Bruce rubbed at his gritty eyes, then went in search of the kids. He found them sprawled around the living room in cuddle piles, surrounded by empty plates and bowls that Alfred was in the process of gathering. The TV was playing some lighthearted medieval parody show.
"Any injuries?" Bruce asked, setting the still-dozing Tim into Garth's lap when the Atlantean raised his arms invitingly.
"Nothing serious," Raven reported.
"Everyone," Bruce said, "you did an excellent job out there." The Titans who were still awake looked at him in surprise for a moment, then smiled happily. Damian was outright beaming.
Vic suddenly grunted and announced, "Superman just showed up. I let him in."
"Ooh." Dick struggled free of all the limbs and blankets he, Kori, Wally, and Donna had been tangled in. He flopped onto a scooter board and rolled after Bruce as the man went to meet with their guest.
They found Clark wandering the halls. "Ah, Bruce," the Kryptonian said with a smile.
"C'ark~" Dick cheered, lifting his hands in the air as he rolled. Clark scooped him up for a hug and then continued to carry him.
"Great job out there, pal."
"Yup! Titans are the best. You did good, too," Dick added generously, and Clark grinned.
"Did you need something?" Bruce asked.
"Just checking on you all. The planet nearly got invaded, that's a pretty big deal."
"We're fine." Bruce could hear how unwelcoming he sounded. It wasn't intentional, but he didn't know what else to say. He was proud of all the kids and relieved that the Justice League's efforts had been successful, but the battle was over now and he was feeling unhappily aimless.
"Hey, Bruce...I wanted you to know, what you did today was really helpful."
"I spent the entire crisis sitting in a chair," Bruce grumbled. It was stupid to be so jealous, he knew all the metas had unique troubles that came along with their gifts. But...still. Being unable to make any contributions in the field made him feel so useless in a crisis. "If you people knew how to truly work as a team instead of a random collection of superpowers, you wouldn't have needed me at all. You really need to get a better sense of how to use your abilities in complementary ways."
"This is why I keep saying we need you, Bruce," Clark said. "I felt so overwhelmed at first, but as soon as you started giving directions, it got easier to fight and I could see the progress we were making. Your contribution as a strategist was invaluable."
Bruce absorbed this. He'd always felt like he was smarter than everyone else, but he constantly dismissed the feeling as subjective arrogance and tried to squash it. If other people could see something special about him, though... It still wasn't an excuse to be arrogant, but as long as he respected other people's perspectives and kept an open mind about suggestions he hadn't thought of, maybe there really was something he could do better than most other people overall.
"Dad," Dick said. Bruce looked at him. "You're a Titan."
Bruce stared.
"And Tim," Dick added. "And Ahfed. You stay home, but you're...home-Titans. You help a lot even when you're home."
Bruce had to take a moment to absorb this, too. To consider the idea that full-fledged superheroes considered him to be one of them. That he wasn't an outsider encroaching on their territory, but that he might be part of the team himself, serving in a different but still valued capacity.
He couldn't quite believe in the concept. But...Dick had said it, and Clark had said it. Maybe it was still true even though he couldn't make himself believe that it was.
He needed more time to think about this, and to evaluate the way the other Titans treated him. He knew they no longer resented him, but was it fond tolerance for their leader's father who'd pushed his way into their clubhouse, or did they really feel like he was part of the team? That wasn't something he could just take Dick's word for. "Do you want to stay for a drink?" he asked Clark to change the subject. "We don't have any alcohol, but there are some other options."
"Just a quick one," Clark said. "I promised to get back to Lois later tonight." He let Dick back down onto his scooter board and the three of them headed to the kitchen.
TBC
