Gifts From the Sea, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Batfam Bingo 2019: AU: Zoo
Chapter 53 - Custody Arrangements (rough draft)
Bruce concentrated hard on keeping his breathing steady and on not squeezing Athanasia too tightly as she played with his shirt buttons. Bruce reminded himself that Superman was nearby, ready to intervene should the children be endangered. Beside him, Damian stood quietly on the beach, stroking Goliath, who was staring out at the waves with his nose twitching.
The dragon-bat's ears suddenly swiveled and he turned his head. Bruce saw Talia making her way toward them, carrying a silver case in one hand, and his breathing stuttered for a moment before he forced it back into a steady rhythm.
The woman paused, fairly near but out of arm's reach. She was as beautiful as Bruce remembered, her fine figure accentuated by her body-hugging outfit and her long, loose hair somehow flowing elegantly in the sea breeze without getting tangled. She was noticeably older than when they'd last seen each other, as was he. Her skin was still flawless other than a faint scar or two, but something about her eyes looked tired and wary.
"Hello, Mother," Damian said. His voice held a mix of hope and caution.
"Damian," she acknowledged. She started to say more, but Goliath was ambling over to her and now snuffled a greeting into her hair. Her face wrinkled a bit in disgust but she raised a hand to pat the creature in greeting. "Yes, hello, Goliath."
"Mama!" Athanasia cried. She started squirming in Bruce's hold, trying to get to her mother, and Bruce struggled to keep a secure hold on her.
Talia pressed her hand against Goliath and stepped forward in a move that gave the illusion of her pushing him away, though in reality, there was no way an ordinary human could physically budge the huge beast. She held out her arms for the baby. The last thing Bruce wanted to do was hand the child over, but Asia was clearly determined to get to her mother and would probably start screaming in a minute if he continued to thwart her. He reminded himself again and again of his superpowered friend standing by and reluctantly allowed Talia to take their daughter out of his arms.
Talia settled the girl on her hip and Athanasia grabbed hold of her necklace, gripping it tight in curious fingers. "Damian," Talia said again, her tone now disapproving, "you have been avoiding communication."
The boy's spine stiffened. He had made no move to step out of Bruce's shadow. "I- was- undercover, and d-didn't want to-"
"You knew he was safe," Bruce said, stepping forward and a little to the side to shield his son. "He owed you nothing else. He's a child, Talia, not your pawn or your soldier."
"He's my child," she snapped, "and he knows better than to disobey orders, particularly in such a flagrant manner."
"What did you come here for?" Bruce demanded. "Because if your only interest in Damian is to punish him, then you might as well hand over Asia and the embryo and leave right now."
"I came here," she said coldly, "to spend time with my children, but I cannot allow Damian's disrespect to go unchecked."
"Oh, so you can rebel against your parent, but Damian is not allowed to retreat from his? What was your punishment for 'disrespect' to Ra's?"
"There is no comparison between the two. I have only ever had my son's best interests in mind."
"Is that why you taught him how to hurt people ever since he could walk? That he's worthless if he's not perfect and he has to earn affection?"
"I raised him with incredible leniency compared to what my father expected of me-"
"Stop blaming Ra's for your own failures in judgment! I'm sorry for how badly he treated you, but it's your responsibility to stop the legacy of abuse, not pass it down to torment your children."
She narrowed her eyes at him. Then she sighed and murmured to the slightly fussing baby, adjusting her grip on the case in her other hand. She met Bruce's eyes again, now looking more tired than offended. "I don't want to waste time arguing with you about this, Bruce."
"And I don't want to see Damian hurt anymore than he already has been. The only reason I agreed to come here with the children is because you are holding my other son hostage." He nodded at the case.
Talia glared at him, but then abruptly raised her chin to gaze out at the sea for a moment. When she turned back, she sounded as if she was making an effort to graciously condescend to him. "I will not quarrel with you, Bruce. Damian, come here. For your father's sake, you are forgiven, and I wish to get a better look at you."
Damian edged closer to her and Bruce matched him step for step. He eyed the case, thinking about snatching it out of Talia's hand and then grabbing Damian and the baby and running, but he knew that could only be a fantasy. He just had to be patient, hope that Talia stayed true to her word, and trust that Superman would have his back if she didn't.
Damian and Talia spoke together for a while, occasionally switching into different languages and sounding stiff and awkward in every one. Talia finally gave a small nod and turned away, moving out of earshot and sitting down on the sand, where she murmured to Athanasia.
Bruce looked at his son. "Are you all right?"
"Yes." Damian didn't elaborate, and there was a long pause. Bruce could faintly hear snatches of Talia's voice over the wind, but he couldn't make out any words. "Father," Damian said suddenly, "what are your long-term expectations of me?"
Bruce sighed. He didn't even have long-term expectations of himself, much less his kids. He'd been doing better lately, but only because he was taking each day at a time, trying to focus on the good things and making constant, conscious efforts to reprogram his thinking. "I just want you to be healthy and happy, Damian."
"That's not a plan. If I know what your hopes for my future are, I can start working toward those goals immediately."
"I just said, Damian- That is my hope, for you to be healthy and happy. You're already physically healthy, you're making great progress on being emotionally healthy, and you're the one who decides what makes you happy. What does make you happy?"
Damian narrowed his eyes at him. "What if what makes me happy isn't something you will be pleased with?"
"There are plenty of things I can think of that wouldn't please me, but which I wouldn't stop you from doing if you genuinely enjoyed them. I just... What is that you like, Damian?" He considered. "Animals? You're so fond of Goliath, and you became a vegetarian after watching that documentary..." Damian had seemed to enjoy working with the rescued lab animals at least as much as Gar had, too.
"What if I said I would like to slaughter my enemies?"
The thought gave Bruce a pang of nausea, but then a beat later, he realized Damian was testing him. "Is that something you would genuinely enjoy, Damian?"
"What if it is?"
Bruce looked him in the eyes until the boy finally glanced away. "Is it, Damian?" he asked again.
"No," Damian whispered.
"All right, so it's moot. Try again."
Damian sighed deeply. "What if I said I wanted to star in musical theater?"
Bruce blinked. "I wouldn't...stop you." He shook his head slightly to get his thoughts in order. "It would require a lot of practice and skill, and there's no harm in it. I might not be particularly fond of musical theater myself, but I would support you."
Now it was Damian's turn to search Bruce's eyes. "Really?"
"Yes," Bruce said without hesitation. He cocked his head. "Do you want me to start looking up performing arts schools for you? Or I can hire a private instructor if it's not safe for you to be visible as a civilian."
Damian exhaled and looked away. "I have no interest in musical theater. I just wanted to see your response."
There was another pause as they watched Talia stop Athanasia from eating a seashell and then stand up, brushing sand off her clothes and stooping to pick up the baby. "I do like animals," Damian suddenly muttered.
"That's good," Bruce muttered back.
The rest of the visit didn't get much better. Bruce didn't allow Talia to spar with Damian and had to quickly put a stop to her unencouraging comments after Damian had performed a solo demonstration of his skills. That nearly led to another argument, except that she glanced at the case at one point and then made another visible effort to rein herself in. Bruce's eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out what could be motivating Talia to have that much self-control, since he was pretty sure it wasn't respect for him or any fear of upsetting their children.
"It would be better if you consented to a real meeting," she grumbled. "This place is desolate." She looked across the empty beach.
"How much longer do you need, Talia?" he asked through gritted teeth. In his arms, Athanasia was starting to get fussy. She probably needed a nap.
Talia clenched the hand that wasn't holding the case. "We need to make a formal agreement about the children. I've had one drawn up already." She handed him a folder.
He struggled to open it with one hand and skimmed over the document inside, letting Damian peer over his arm to read it as well. He raised his head. "No."
"What exactly do you find objectionable?" she asked icily.
"You can't take them, even temporarily."
"They are my children, Bruce. I have full rights to them."
"You abused them! You think I'd-" Athanasia objected to the angry tone, so he bounced her in his arms to soothe her and tried to calm his voice. "You think I'd let Damian live with you again for any length of time after what you did to him? I've seen the scars, Talia!"
"How dare you accuse me?!" Though Talia was clearly angry, she kept her voice low as well. Bruce could feel Damian shrinking behind him. "I would not harm my own child, Bruce, for anything short of his ultimate benefit! And now that I have true control of him, things will be different. I no longer have to bow to my father's wishes regarding my son."
"How can you trust yourself to do what's actually best for your kids when you barely even acknowledge how badly your father treated you? I may not be the world's greatest parent, but at least I had good role models!"
She narrowed her eyes. "What do you propose?"
He didn't want her in his children's lives. He didn't want to see her ever again. But he couldn't see a way to get rid of her for good, and if he antagonized her too much, she might pursue him enough to uncover his hiding place and take his children by force. "...Scheduled visits, with me present the whole time. Like this, but somewhere the kids might enjoy more, like a park or a performance."
She waited, but he didn't have anything else to add. "You expect me to be satisfied with such paltry arrangements?"
"What do you even want them for, Talia?"
"Damian has too much invested in him to let him go to waste! Athanasia is missing out on valuable instruction time!"
"What do you want them FOR, Talia?" he repeated in a hiss, trembling with the effort to contain his rage as he tried to distract Athanasia with a toy. "What purpose? It can't be to turn them from ordinary people into amazing ones, because they already are."
"You are failing to make your point," she said in frustration. "The reason Damian excels is because we've worked tirelessly to train him, and-"
"I am not talking about his skills! I'm saying if you can't recognize the inherent worth of your children, maybe you shouldn't be making them miserable trying to earn the love you should have been giving them all along." They glared at each other until Athanasia's angry contortions finally forced him to break eye contact and shift his hold.
"Mother," Damian said softly, "I am glad to see you, but I...I would- prefer to live with Father. I have work of my own to do." He looked apprehensive.
Talia looked at her son stonily for a long moment, then deliberately flexed her free hand, straightened, and raised her head. "As do I. Damian, I need to speak to your father alone."
Bruce ended up handing both kids into Clark's charge and then climbing into Talia's car. She got into the driver's seat and turned to look at him, still holding the case. "Bruce," she said, "before we settle on a contract, I should...tell you the truth about the last embryo."
He stiffened, his mind immediately jumping to his worst fears. "It's dead, isn't it. You tricked me."
"Bruce, no," she said quickly, then hesitated. "That is...I have not been entirely honest with you, but the embryo is still- It wasn't terminated, though it should have been."
"Is it really in there, or is that thing empty?" he asked tightly, nodding at the case.
"It's here." She laid her hand over it and didn't meet Bruce's eyes. "Damian is genetically altered, but...he is not a clone."
He blinked at her. "What?" The files he'd looked at had said...that the embryo Talia held was, along with Athanasia, the only surviving one of the fertilized eggs, and Damian had been one of the many clones derived from it.
Talia took a controlled breath. "I wanted nothing to do with the embryos until they had made it to a late enough stage that they were deemed too valuable to destroy. Even I had not anticipated the extent of my father's carelessness and wastefulness, so I was...outraged when I did finally discover it. I persuaded him to let me take over with my own team and we were much more successful, as...eventually evidenced by Damian and Athanasia." She paused again. "However...our very first practical attempt...fell short of the mark. Damian was the second attempt."
It was difficult to speak through his choked-up throat. "...I don't understand." He already knew about all the dead children, the embryos who'd never been allowed a chance.
"They were ours, Bruce," she burst out. "Yours and mine. I know you despise me now, but I...still thought of you fondly then. It was just a tiny collection of cells, but isn't that what every child was at one point? I couldn't- It felt wrong to kill our child."
"I don't understand what you're trying to tell me!" he burst out. "Of course it was wrong, Talia!"
She blinked at him as if he'd said something unexpected. Then she frowned. "It was defective. It is defective. I switched the original embryo and the failed clone in secret, so I could make another attempt at the procedure without terminating the clone." She drew in a breath and spoke with something like dread, as if admitting a dark secret. "The cloned embryo...if it were to be implanted in a womb and make it through gestation, it would be born disabled. It's useless, Bruce. I only...I only used it to persuade you to let me see my children." The next words seemed forced from her mouth with difficulty. "I'm sorry for misleading you."
He stared at her. After a minute, she finally looked back. "That's it?" he said.
She frowned. "What?"
"You don't even want it? Give it to me!"
Looking as wary and confused as Talia al Ghul could, her grip on the case shifted in an almost hesitant way, and he snatched it out of her hands. "You don't want it?" he confirmed.
"It has nothing but sentimental value."
"So you'll give up your parental rights to it- to him?"
She frowned at him. "Are you planning to let it be born?"
"Not soon." He was already so overwhelmed, he didn't need to add yet another complication to his life right now. "But...someday, maybe when Athanasia's older, then yes."
"It's defective," she said, sounding more bewildered than ever. "It will probably be intellectually disabled and have-"
"I don't care," he snapped. "Plenty of people have children with special needs; I already have children with special needs. I have enough resources to provide my son with the best medical care available and the best education he's capable of receiving. He's not any less of a human being just because he isn't what some people would consider 'perfect' or 'normal.' "
Talia was silent for so long that Bruce finally debated just getting out of the car and leaving. He was eyeing the paperwork, wondering whether to leave it or try to take it, when Talia finally spoke again. "Do you realize that caring for children as deeply and unconditionally as you do makes you vulnerable?"
He sighed. Back in college, he'd used to think that Talia's epiphanies about things normal people took for granted were cute. Now it was just exasperating and painful to discover how little she knew about certain matters even though she was such an incredibly talented genius in others. "I'm a parent. Being vulnerable is part of the job description."
"It wouldn't have to be if you ensured your children could defend and take care of themselves," she snapped.
"Do you feel vulnerable, Talia? Is that why you treated your children the way you did, because you'd rather hurt them than take a single blow for their sakes?"
She slammed her hand against the steering wheel. "I do not appreciate your judgmental attitude."
"And I don't appreciate you making me have children against my will and then, on top of that, allowing most of them to be murdered and abusing the survivors."
She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. "I don't want to fight with you, Bruce," she said through gritted teeth. Then she went through a deliberate relaxation routine and exhaled one last time at the end of it. "If I agree to your visitation terms, will your consider my debt to you repaid?"
He was too tired to keep trying to educate her. "It wouldn't hurt."
"And will you train Damian and Athanasia to have strength, skill, and knowledge as befits their rank? I already know your efforts will be inadequate, but I cannot allow my worthy children to fall entirely to uselessness and obscurity."
"I can promise the best education money can buy, self-defense skills, and support in whatever talents they wish to pursue. Damian's making a name for himself in the vigilante world, and I can already tell how smart Athanasia is."
Talia had her head in her hand now, looking almost as tired as he felt. "I will visit every six months. You may supervise, but I will choose the venues."
"You can suggest venues. I get final say. And you have to notify me of your visits at least a week ahead."
"I reserve the right to reschedule if unexpected complications arise."
"Fine. And you stay out of this little one's life entirely." He patted the case.
She hesitated for a while, then finally said, "All right."
They hand-wrote two copies of a new contract and signed it. Then Bruce got out of the car and headed toward his children, holding the case in his arms as if it was already a baby.
Damian, who was holding a sleeping Athanasia, stood up and handed her Clark, warily watching his mother's approach.
Talia strode past Bruce and stopped in front of her son. "Goodbye, Damian. I plan to visit you again in six months."
"Yes, Mother."
They gazed at each other for a while, then Talia reached out and hugged him. He closed his eyes and leaned against her. "Be strong," she said, "Do not forget your roots."
"Yes, Mother. I...I love you."
"I love you as well." Talia stepped back and looked at the baby for a long time, then turned away and walked back to her car.
Once they were alone, Bruce exhaled deeply and sat down. "You all right, Bruce?" Clark asked. Damian knelt down to peer into his face.
"I'm tired," Bruce murmured. He gripped the case with one hand and rested the other on Damian's shoulder. Goliath padded over and gently head-butted him.
"In that case, we should go home, Father," Damian said.
Bruce smiled. "Yeah."
TBC
A/N: One bit in this chapter was a reference to Cdelphiki's excellent fic Life Happens, where she plausibly developed Damian from his canon ten-year-old self into a professional performer unashamed to pursue his calling in musical theater. :)
It's not set in stone yet, but I've had in mind that the embryo in this chapter is this AU's version of Heretic. I have no plans to write anything with him onscreen, but I wanted to indicate what will eventually happen to him (once Bruce feels up to raising him, he'll be born and join the family).