Gifts From the Sea, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

Batfam Bingo 2019: AU: Zoo

Chapter 14 - When the Book is Finished (rough draft 2)

Bruce didn't know what to do with himself once he was back home. He carefully and methodically unpacked and put everything away, then warmed up a frozen meal and forced himself to eat it. Then he slept for twelve hours straight. Then he sat in the sand for another hour or two, just watching the ocean that had given him his only child and then taken him away again.

He returned to the house and went back to sleep, his face stiff with tear tracks.

o.o.o

Bruce started to write a book. He'd never written anything in his life outside of school assignments and reports, but he had all the material and he had so much time now, so why not?

As most of his projects did, it became an obsession. He woke up every morning at 5:15 a.m., went through a 45-minute physical exercise and training regimen, downed a protein shake for breakfast, then got on the computer and worked on the book until his phone alerted him that it was time for lunch at exactly 12:00 p.m.

He'd eat a sandwich while sitting on his front porch, watching the ocean, then return to work on the book until it was time to microwave a frozen dinner at 6:00 p.m. On certain days, two hours were spent on any business or errands; on other days, he would answer messages and read the news. He called his parents faithfully every night after they'd had their own dinner, then he would try to sleep. If he couldn't, he'd either work on the book again or go out and sit on the sand, holding Dick's toy elephant and watching in vain for any sign of his boy emerging from the dark depths.

o.o.o

"Oh, I'm so glad I finally caught you, Bruce! We've been worried about Dickie. You know, he's fallen behind on quite a lot of schoolwork, but we'd be happy to assign him a tutor after school and get him back up to-"

"Dick's gone. His bio-parents showed up, I lost custody."

There was a stunned silence. "Oh...oh, my goodness, Bruce, I'm so sor-"

Bruce squeezed his eyes shut and jerked the phone away from his ear. After a moment, he cleared his throat, said gruffly into the phone, "I am, too," then hung up. He stormed back to his computer and wrote some more.

o.o.o

A little before noon, Bruce was startled to hear a loud clanging sound coming from right outside the house. The beat came every two seconds until Bruce scrambled outside.

He stopped dead, staring. Floating in midair was a magnificent woman, tall and beautiful, muscular, her expression serious, her American-colored armor shining in the sunlight. The noise had been from her striking her sword against her shield.

Before Bruce could even start to figure out why he was getting a visit from freaking Wonder Woman, the ambassador from a mythical land who had made headlines upon her arrival in Washington, D.C. a month or two ago, she had descended and was striding toward him. "I greet you in peace, Man," she said in a powerful voice.

"Hello..."

"I am Diana of Themyscira." She came to a stop in front of him, very straight-backed, her stance solid. She was slightly taller than him, even though Bruce was not a short man. "It has come to my attention that there is an oppressed and imprisoned race here, yet the bureaucracy of this country prevents my righting the injustice peacefully. I was told that you have in your possession much valuable information that will aid in the liberation of this race under the laws of the land."

She had to be referring to mer. "Who told you I might have such information?" he asked sharply. Very few people knew about the evidence he'd collected.

"King Arthur of Atlantis and Kal-El of Krypton."

Oh. "I can't...give you all of it. My son and I would be endangered. But I do have useful material that doesn't implicate us, I'll make a flash drive for you..."

The Amazon warrior seemed thoroughly out of place in Bruce's upscale beach house, but as archaic and formal as she was, she softened when Bruce started showing her photographs and videos of Dick. "Oh, what a delightful child. I have not met him yet, but Arthur says he has a marvelous spirit, and now I see he is additionally very sweet and graced."

"That he is," Bruce murmured, watching with a bittersweet ache as Dick in the video danced to "Macarena" on the sand, hoisting himself up on his hands and athletically sweeping his tail in a circle beneath him before starting the next repetition of moves.

Diana stayed a while, discussing matters with Bruce over tea. At last, she stood and carefully closed the flash drive Bruce had given her into a small box, tucked it away into her armor, then rose slightly in the air. "I am honored to have met you, Bruce Wayne of Gotham."

"Likewise, Diana. Let me know how things go and if you need anymore help."

She nodded and then turned, soaring away.

Bruce sighed deeply, then went back to work on his book.

o.o.o

"Have you thought about coming home, sweetheart? Your father and I are worried about you."

"I...I can't- What if he comes back, Mother? I can't- He'll be looking for me and the house will be empty, I can't- do that to him."

"...I see. Well, if you ever feel differently, you know you are always very welcome here, right?"

"Yes, Mother, I know."

o.o.o

When Bruce picked up his mail from the post office, one of the employees stopped him and went to fetch a whole sack full of more correspondence. They were letters to Dick, many of them handmade, from his friends and classmates at school and many of the town's citizens who'd heard the cover story.

We miss you, Dick!

Come back to play with us again, okay?

You were an okay guy, Dick. Too bad your parents showed up. Sorry for pushing you back then.

*heart* *star* *heart* *star* We love you, Dickie! *star* *heart* *star* *heart*

Bruce took them home and set them all up in a corner, carefully setting Zitka the elephant in the middle and hanging Dick's two favorite T-shirts on the walls.

"Come back, Dickie," he whispered.

o.o.o

"Darling, it's been weeks. Don't you think-?"

"I'm almost done with my book. I'm- When I finish my book. Maybe."

o.o.o

The doorbell rang, which meant it was Superman. No one else ever came to this secluded home uninvited and bothered to ring the bell.

Bruce sighed. "Dick's gone; go away!" he shouted. Technically, he could have whispered and the alien would have still heard him, but the moment he started to speak, his voice seemed to boom without permission, aggression rising up in him so quickly that he was surprised. He'd been peacefully writing his book; why was he even angry? "Dick's fucking gone! He's DEAD TO ME!"

Clark crept warily into the study. "Bruce?"

"Go away," Bruce whispered, his throat tight, his fingers too stiff to press the keys anymore. "Go...away...!" Clark simply took a step closer, and Bruce buried his face in his hands.

"What- Did something happen to Dick? Is he all right?"

"He's FINE," Bruce snarled. "He went fucking home. Mission accomplished. Animal rehabilitated and released into the wild; what a fucking paragon of conservation I am."

Clark pulled up a chair and set a hand on his shoulder, warm and heavy and comforting. Bruce didn't know how long he sat there with his face in his hands, but when he finally raised his head, he felt a little calmer. "I'm on the last chapter. Stay until I finish; I want to give you a copy of the manuscript."

"All right."

As Clark wandered across the beach for the next hour, Bruce finished his memoir. He sat there for a long moment, trembling a little with an emotion he couldn't describe. Then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, opened his eyes again, and moved the cursor to the very beginning of the document. He added a page break, and at the center of the new first page, he typed:

The Boy in the Fish Tank

by

Bruce Wayne

He hit the Print button.

Clark stayed for dinner since the manuscript took so long to finish printing. The man took one look inside Bruce's refrigerator, sighed, asked for a set of civilian clothes, flew over to the mainland, then came back with groceries.

"I have food," Bruce said sourly.

"You have nutrients. Until now, I didn't believe it was possible, but apparently 'nutrients' and 'food' are not necessarily the same thing."

They cooked together, or rather, Clark guided Bruce through a simple recipe and Bruce just barely succeeded in not setting fire to anything.

Bruce didn't say much as they ate. Clark kept up an easy stream of chatter at first, but the words gradually died away, and they finished their meal in companionable silence.

Once the dishes were in the sink, Bruce fetched the thick stack of paper from his desk and slid it into a large envelope. "Tell me what you think," he said roughly as he handed it over.

"I will," Clark promised. "And I'll keep it secret unless you give me permission to share it."

"How's the campaign going?" Bruce asked, referring to combined efforts to work toward giving mer legal status as people.

"There's a good chance we'll get a Congressional hearing in the near future."

"Good," Bruce exhaled. "That's good."

o.o.o

It took longer to revise and edit the book than it had been to write the first draft. Once it was as perfect as Bruce could make it when he only dared show it to Clark, his parents, and Alfred, he had it self-published. As soon as the box from the printing company arrived, he took it home and opened it with silent intensity. He removed a crisp copy of The Boy in the Fish Tank, fetched a bookmark, and settled in an easy chair by the window to read.

It took him two days to read his memoir, purposely going slow. When he finished, he stared at the blank page between the final word of text and the back cover. Slowly, he closed the book and set it down on the side table. He stared across his empty living room for a while.

Then he got up and moved down to the water's edge, eyes searching the waves. He waited, and waited, and each minute that passed sent another piece of hope crumbling - the foolish, secret hope he'd nursed for so long that maybe, once he had finished his book, the spell would break and his son would return home.

o.o.o

Foolish, childish, stupid. Some wishes never had a chance of coming true.

Bruce brought an armful of bottles up from the wine cellar and got drunk, then slept for fourteen hours straight. Half an hour after waking up, he finally managed to drag himself out of bed long enough to pee, then shuffled back to the mattress.

o.o.o

"Alfred...I'm coming home. Don't...don't tell Mother and Father yet. I...I just... ...I'm coming home."

"Very good, sir. I shall make sure your room is prepared."

o.o.o

It was getting close to nightfall and Bruce physically felt like crap, but at least the angry, grieving depression had been replaced with resignation. Dick was gone. Bruce had raised his son as well as he could, and now Dick was happy in his true home with his true people, and it was time for Bruce to move on toward the next phase of his life, just like Dick obviously had.

He had made lists of everything he needed to do and pack before leaving for Gotham. He needed to get supplies, too, and fill out a Change of Address form at the post office. He got into his boat and headed into town.

TBC