Gifts From the Sea, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Batfam Bingo 2019: AU: Zoo
Chapter 17 - The Boys (rough draft 2)
Bruce was helping Jason build a model of the Alamo when a loud clanging sound rang out, familiar to Bruce but making Jason jump like a startled cat. "What the fu-?!"
"It's all right," Bruce chuckled. "She's a friend."
Jason hid behind the door while Bruce walked out to meet Diana. She smiled and greeted him, then descended to the ground and turned to the man in green and black who was floating down to join her. "I know you two have seen each other over the video communications, but I am pleased to introduce you in person."
"Wayne," the Green Lantern acknowledged with a nod.
"Jordan."
The Lantern did a double-take. "What?! Uh, who's, uh, who's Jordan?"
"I was curious. Looked up relevant celestial events and matched them to potential candidates. Figured Hal Jordan made the most sense."
Hal looked at Diana and said indignantly, pointing a dramatic finger at Bruce, "Are you sure we can trust this creep?!"
"I would trust him with my life," Diana declared. Bruce was touched. "Bruce, we have come to ask for your advice on a certain matter, but I confess I have also been interested in meeting your new child."
Bruce, always happy to show off his sons, smiled and turned to the doorway. "Jay, she knows you're in there," he called. "Don't worry, they don't bite. And if they do, I'll protect you."
The door slammed open. "Who asked you?!" Jason shouted, and stormed down the front walk. However, as soon as he reached his guardian, he took one look at the Amazon and the ring-bearer and edged behind Bruce, glaring out from under the man's arm.
"This is Jason," Bruce said proudly. "He's staying with me for a while."
" 'Sup, champ," Jordan said, inclining his head.
Diana's smile was broad and warm. "Hello, little one. It is an honor to meet you."
"Are you...are you Wonder Woman?" Jason ventured, taking in her outfit and the golden lasso coiled at her hip.
"I am, indeed."
Jason knocked his fist against Bruce's back and hissed, "Bruce, how th' fuck d'you know Wonder Woman?"
"She's a friend. We work together sometimes, long-distance." He invited the guests in and they got to work in the living room, spreading out papers and Bruce's laptop on the coffee table and floor. Jason watched the entire time from the entryway, even starting to tiptoe in after a while to wordlessly set a plate of cookies and then a soda and then a seat cushion near Diana.
The fourth time he crept toward her, this time very carefully bearing a cup of coffee, she turned to face him, and he froze. "I thank you for your hospitality, young Man."
"Y-You're welcome," he stammered. "I d-don't know if you like coffee, but, um, I, you didn't like the soda, so I thought, maybe-"
"Thank you," she said graciously, and took the mug out of his hands.
"Do you want sugar?!" he burst out as she raised it to her lips. "Or cream, or, or anything else? Can I get you anything else? You can have. Anything."
Diana smiled, and Bruce was trying very hard not to laugh. "This will suffice." She took a sip. "It is very good."
Jason looked relieved.
"Jay," Bruce said, "you can hang out in here with us if you want."
"I don't want to bother, to get in the way, um-"
"I could use a cup of coffee, too," Jordan said.
Jason glared contemptuously at him. "I'm not your servant. There's still some in the coffeepot; get it yourself."
"What?!"
"Jay," Bruce scolded mildly, "both of them are guests, not just Diana."
Jason sulkily stood up, then looked surprised when Diana rose to her feet as well. "I will assist you, little one."
"Oh, n-no, you don't have to, I'll get it, I know you're busy-!"
"It's quite all right, Jason." She set a hand on his shoulder, and he looked a little dazed.
They disappeared into the kitchen together, and Jordan raised an eyebrow at Bruce. "He knows he's way too young for her, right?"
"Jordan," Bruce snapped, "it's hero-worship, not a crush." 'Please, please, please be hero-worship...'
When the others came back in, Diana with a cup of coffee for the Lantern, Jason ran and slid to the ground by Bruce and whispered excitedly in his ear, "She signed a paper plate for me! She freaking signed it, Bruce; she is so freaking cool!"
When the visitors finally got up to leave, Bruce and Jason accompanied them outside. Diana faced Jason and crossed her arm over her chest. "It was very good to meet you, Jason," she said, inclining her head
"Likewise, Wonder Woman," Jason said solemnly, copying the gesture and actually bowing.
"Tell Clark hi for me," Bruce said.
"We will."
Jordan saluted, then the two visitors rose into the air and flew away.
"Aaaahhh!" Jason yelled, and started jumping around in excitement. "Wonder Woman! Freaking WONDER FREAKING WOMAN! Bruce, how does a dork like you know the coolest person on Earth?! HOW?!"
Bruce chuckled. "If you're this excited about meeting Wonder Woman, I wonder what you'll make of Aquaman and Superman."
"Aqua-?! WHAT?! You know-?! Can I meet him?! Please please please, Bruce, can I meet Aquaman?!"
"He might have to find a day to fit you in, but sure."
o.o.o
The next day, Bruce was standing in the kitchen entryway, sipping at a cup of coffee, watching Jason read in his favorite chair, thinking how cute and precious he was, and hoping Jay wouldn't notice and yell at him before he'd had his fill of drinking in the sight of a child he cared about being safe and relaxed and happy. Since Jason liked to be near windows, the sun-bathed ocean formed a beautiful background behind him.
So Bruce was looking directly at that view when something blue, black, and a little sparkly in the sunlight crawled out of the waves and began hauling itself up the beach.
Bruce ducked back into the kitchen, nearly spilling his coffee, pressing a hand to his mouth in shock. In a daze, he set down the coffee and then covered his face with both hands, sliding to the floor as tears stung his eyes and then spilled down his cheeks.
He'd thought... He'd thought Dick was gone forever. Dick was- home now, where he'd always been meant to be; Atlantis, what, what was he doing here, oh God was something wrong, had the city been attacked, was he hurt-?!
Bruce stumbled to his feet and made it back to the kitchen entryway just as the front door banged open.
"SCREEEEE!"
Jason leaped out of the chair in his startled-cat way. "Holy sh-!"
"B!" Dick screamed wrathfully, drawing out the letter so it sounded like "Beeeeee!" He seized a scooter board from the box that was still by the door and hauled himself onto it. Then his eyes snapped to Jason. "WHO TH' HELL 'RE YOU?!"
"What the fuck this is a HUMAN HOUSE you freaking moron do you WANT to get trafficked?!" Jason whisper-yelled frantically. He was running toward Dick, making wild shooing motions, but the alarmed mer hastily rolled out of reach. "And shut up, he'll hear you, he's probably right outside!"
"Who are you?!"
"Who are YOU?! How can you freaking talk?!"
"He replaced me," Dick concluded in disbelief. Bruce, frozen in the entry with the disorientation of seeing both his sea children in the same room, seeing how furious Dick was and how terrified Jason apparently was of him still, couldn't have interrupted if he'd tried. "Oh, RIGHT, got tired of fish boy an' threw 'im away, wanted new baby so got himself li'l baby seal; fuck you, B!"
"Will you move?" Jason demanded, lunging at him again, but Dick swiftly braced himself on his hands so he could swipe Jason aside with his tail, then thudded back onto the scooter.
The mer dismissively looked away and pulled himself across the floor. "B-!" He finally caught sight of Bruce and his eyes narrowed in a glare.
"Dick," Bruce said weakly.
Dick raised his hands to sign, but Jason darted in front of him with his arms spread protectively. "Don't you TOUCH him!" the younger boy shouted. "Leave him alone! I'll make him leave, just don't hurt-!"
Dick impatiently shoved him aside and dragged himself closer to Bruce. "You really do hate me!"
"Dickie, why would you think that?" Bruce asked, dropping to his knees and reaching out.
Dick slapped his hands aside. "You LEFT ME!" He started to sign furiously. "You left me! Then JUST when I decided maybe you didn't actually hate me and just thought I'd be happier with other mer-"
"Dickie, slow down, I can't-"
"-I come back and you have a SEAL son instead of me! You don't care about ME, you just want a cute and helpless sea baby, when you get tired of it you throw it away and get a new little one to-"
"RICHARD." A corner of Bruce's mind was very interested to get confirmation of his suspicions about Jason, but of course there were more pressing matters to focus on at the moment. "I thought I would die when I lost you."
"You didn't lose me, you LEFT-!"
"I left my heart in Atlantis that day! I missed you every single day, so much it hurt! I waited for you to come back even though I knew you had no reason to return to me, I tried to figure out what to do with my life now that my son was gone, it was like you had died and I wanted to die, too!"
Dick looked aghast and incredulous. "I WASN'T DEAD! You left me! YOU left ME!"
"In Atlantis, Dick. Your home. Your people-"
"THIS IS MY HOME!" Dick screamed out loud.
There was a long silence. Then Dick's face crumpled and he burst into tears, sagging to hide his face in his arms.
Bruce, tears seeping down his own face, pulled his son into his arms and held him. "You were a prisoner," he whispered. "I had to set you free."
"You did!" Dick wailed. His hands shook as he resumed signing. "You took me from the zoo! Free! When I live here in this house by the ocean with you, I AM free, I'm happy! Why did you ruin it?!"
"I'm sorry...I'm sorry, Dickie, I'm so sorry, I made a mistake, I didn't realize you saw it that way..."
After holding each other for a long time, their weeping finally died down and Dick pulled back to glare at Bruce with still-wet eyes. "Seal," he demanded.
Bruce sighed. "He was hurt. I couldn't just-" He broke off when he looked up and realized that Jason was perched on the sill, as if ready to jump out the open window and flee at a moment's notice. He was watching Bruce and Dick with huge, shocked, bewildered eyes. "Jay. Um. This is my son, Dick. Dick, this is Jason, he's been living here for a while."
"Hi," Dick said sourly.
Jason made a wild gesture. "How?! What is-?! How! WHAT! He's a fish, how did this happen?!"
"Er...I actually wrote a book, that will probably be easier than- Oh! Dick, I...I wrote a book." Bruce felt his face heating up. "About you."
Dick stared at him. "Huh?!"
Bruce sighed and finally peeled his arms off of the mer so he could stand up. "Put on a sleeve," he said as he headed for the locked closet where he hid several copies of The Boy in the Fish Tank.
When he came back, Jason was crouched on the floor, watching in fascination as Dick pulled a plastic sleeve over his tail. "So I don't dry out," the mer explained. "Don't have to keep dipping myself in the pool all the time. If I'm careful, I can make it through a whole day of school without having to refresh."
"You go to school?! With people?!"
Dick laughed. "Lots of people." He turned to Bruce. "B! I mean, Dad! Where's my phone, I want to call my friends!"
"Before or after you look at the book?" Bruce asked, trying not to feel offended.
Dick shrugged a shoulder. "I dunno. After, I guess."
Bruce handed a copy to Jason, who immediately ran with it to his reading chair and practically slammed it open. Dick, on the other hand, read a page and a half, asked Bruce to read aloud to him, politely listened to a few more pages, then took the book back and rifled through it until he saw the section of photos in the middle. He went through the pictures with interest, then tossed the book aside and asked for his phone again.
Bruce sighed. "You don't mind that I wrote a book about you? It's not distributed, only Clark and Alfred and my parents have even read it. I-"
"Oooohh, C'ark, I want to call him, too!"
After being informed of the cover story, Dick spent the next several hours on the phone, filling the house with his laughter and eager chattering. Jason spent those same hours intently reading, always in a different contorted teenage-boy pose every time Bruce checked on him, his eyes constantly glued to the page. "Jay, look up and rest your eyes," Bruce had to remind him every so often.
When Dick finally finished on the phone, he went out to the pool, yelled for Bruce to come clean it, helped Bruce do so, then went for a short nostalgia swim. Then he cuddled with Bruce on the couch while they watched a Disney movie, and Bruce felt like he'd never been happier in his life.
They all ate dinner in the living room because Dick, who'd missed TV while in Atlantis, wanted to watch another movie, and Jason was still engrossed in the book and Bruce didn't have the heart to enforce his 'no reading at the table' rule tonight.
Just like old times, Dick wanted to sleep in the pool, and Bruce set up his cot and bedding so they'd be near each other. They'd had their nightly cuddle and Dick was back in the water, drifting, Bruce sleepily watching the stars on his cot, when Jason came out, apparently having finished the book. He hesitated, then sat down on the ground by the cot and looked at Bruce. Dick swam over and rested his arms on the edge of the pool, leaning his head against them to watch.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Jason demanded.
Bruce had missed Dick so much that every thought or mention of him hurt, so he'd actively avoided thinking about his lost son. "I was...not in the best frame of mind when we met. And then I just got so busy, I... I don't know. It was a strange thing to mention out of the blue. And all those things I talked about in the book about why I work so hard to keep Dick a secret, they still apply."
Jason sighed deeply. "I wish you'd told me. Then maybe I would've..."
"Maybe you would have what, Jay?" Bruce prompted after a moment.
"Nothing," Jason muttered, hugging his knees and resting his chin on them.
The position exposed his hood a little more than usual. Bruce finally gave in to temptation and grasped the edge of the hood, tugging it up over Jason's head. The boy gasped and jerked, but it was too late; Bruce caught a glimpse of his frantic eyes before the boy sank down into a small, furry shape flailing on top of a pile of suddenly empty shorts, underwear, and socks.
The seal frantically swiped at its face with its flippers, then there was Jason again, scrambling back so quickly that he fell in the pool. Dick briefly closed his eyes but made no move to avoid the splash.
"Jay, put it back, I wanted a picture of you two together," Bruce said, sitting up now as he tapped the camera app on his phone.
"YOU KNEW?!" Jason shrieked from the center of the pool.
"Yes, I did," Bruce said, snapping a photo that technically had both his sons in it, though they were nowhere near each other and Jason's figure was mostly obscured by motion blurs and splashing water.
"WHAT THE-?! HOW LONG HAVE YOU KNOWN?! WHAT?! HOW!"
"Jay, calm down. I've suspected almost since the beginning, and was all but certain the first night I found you in my kitchen."
Jason stared at him, mouth hanging open.
"Jay, come here," Dick called, hoisting himself out of the pool. "Picture time." He struck one of his hammy poses. God, Bruce had missed this ridiculous kid so much...
"WHADDAYA MEAN YOU KNEW THE WHOLE TIME?!"
"Jason, I have a fish boy for a son. Do you think I care that my second kid is a seal sometimes?"
"Wha...?!" Jason was clutching his hoodie, still staring at Bruce in utter shock. "Wh-Why didn't you sell me?! Or take my- It's not TRUE, it's not fuckin' true, you try ta sell me you ain't gettin' NOTHING, no one pays shit fer selkie parts, so don't get any ideas-!"
"What the hell," Bruce bellowed back, "have I EVER fucking done to make you think I would hurt you, Jason Wayne?"
There was a long pause. "...Nothing," Jason finally whimpered, then broke down in tears.
Dick slipped into the pool, swam to Jason, and gently tugged the younger boy to the side of the pool, handing him up to Bruce. Bruce wrapped Jason in a towel (the hoodie, though wet like skin, was not waterlogged like real fabric would be). Bruce and Dick put their arms around the child and held him as he cried.
"My n-name," Jason finally gasped out, rubbing fiercely at his eyes, " 's Jason Todd, not Wayne."
Bruce mentally filed away the new information. "If your parents are really dead, then you will be a Wayne in the eyes of the law, if you let me," he murmured. "You already are in spirit, as far as I'm concerned."
Jason gasped out fresh tears.
"Jaylad, what happened to you? Did anyone ever try to sell you?" Bruce asked, remembering a horrific comment Jason had made once and praying it had been an exaggeration.
"They DID sell me," Jason snarled. "Found out I'm a...'m a seal... Fuckin' sold me ta traffickers. Kept us in a warehouse, selkies in cages with our, our pelts locked up, mer in tanks... Some 'f us were gonna be slaves, others they were gonna c-cut up for parts, for fucking superstitious IDIOTS who think we can cure them or give good luck or whatever shit they're too fuckin' lazy t' do actual work for."
Jason swallowed hard. Bruce had his jaw clenched; Dick was trembling.
"One...one n-night, th' fish started singing, both th' guards came in... Idiots thought they'd act'lly get t' fuck some fish; mer drowned 'em instead. Took their keys and threw 'em to us. We got out, got our pelts... Some of 'em just ran, but me and some others, we got th' fish out, carried 'em to the dock and threw 'em in the harbor... Couldn' make sure they got away 'cause alarms were goin' off; I put on m' hood and swam...I swam...fuckin' swam for my fuckin' life..." Jason was sobbing again. Bruce couldn't hold him any tighter than he already was, so he rested his cheek against the boy's hair and hummed.
"Sing, Dad," Dick whimpered. "Please."
Bruce sang softly until they'd all calmed down. Jason slumped against him, exhausted, and Dick was curled in the crook of his arm by now. "Bruce," Jason sighed wearily, "don't hurt me."
"Never Jaylad," Bruce murmured, kissing the top of his head. "Never."
Jason drew in a deep, shaky breath. "Bruce?"
"Yes?"
Blue eyes turned up to him. "Will you...will you help me find my mom?"
Bruce blinked. "She's still alive?"
Jason hunched in and fidgeted again. "My...my dad and my m- stepmom, I guess...Catherine...they're dead. Thought Catherine was my mom even after she died, then...foun' out she wasn't... My mom-" Jason drew in a breath. "Her name starts with 'S.' Not 'C.' So...she's the one- That's why-" He briefly closed his eyes. "Catherine helped me hide, but she wasn't a seal like me, 'n' now I know why. My real mom was the seal. I...I have to meet her. Was...lookin' for Aquaman, going through coast towns... C'n you help me find my mom, Bruce? Please?"
"Of course, Jay," Bruce said, trying to fight the sudden aching sadness he felt at the thought of losing his younger son. "Of course."
The boy exhaled in relief. "Okay."
Once the boys were asleep, Dick in the pool and Jason wrapped in blankets on the cot, Bruce pulled out his phone. Arthur needed to know about the traffickers, and to look into any selkies who might have left a half-breed child in Gotham years ago.
TBC
