Gifts From the Sea, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

Batfam Bingo 2019: AU: Zoo

Chapter 42 - Raw Wounds (rough draft 2)

A/N: Warning for numerous F-bombs being screamed every other word by two extremely upset characters.

o.o.o

Bruce was starting to feel guilty about the last holdout.

All the Titans liked him by now except for Robin and Speedy (and Dick...), but at least Speedy didn't act like the Tower wasn't big enough for both him and Bruce. Over a week after the man's arrival, Robin was still cloaking themself, had not spoken a single word in Bruce's presence, and was rarely seen, apparently keeping mostly to their own room when not on patrol.

One afternoon, while watching Wally cook and unhappily thinking about how his presence was pressuring a child into silence and self-confinement, Bruce asked, "Why does Robin hate me?"

"I dunno. Same reason Dick does, I guess."

click

"...What?"

Wally was suddenly a blur of movement, rushing around the kitchen until his half-prepared meal was slapped into a serving bowl and the dirty pots and utensils piled up to soak in the sink. "I'mprettyhungry,thinkI'mgonnaeatoutside;catchyalater,Bruce!"

Then he was gone and Bruce was alone except for Tim tapping away at his tablet.

Bruce put his head in his hands, feeling stunned. Dick was angry with him for supposedly abandoning him and replacing him with Tim. It wasn't possible for anyone else to have those motivations except for...for Jason, and Jason was...gone. Jason was gone, so why had Wally said that Robin-?

Robin.

click

...It wasn't...an uncommon name. But...still...

"Oh God," Bruce whispered. Was it possible? Was there any chance-?

Searching increasingly frantically through his memories, Bruce started to realize that his sole source of information about Jason's death had been the claim of a sadistic trafficker, one who'd blamed her own child for his father's sins and sold the boy into slavery or death. She had told Bruce that Jason was dead, but the claim had never been confirmed. The police hadn't even known what they were truly looking for, hadn't known there might be reason to keep searching once Bruce gave up. Bruce had sought to protect his child by keeping his true nature secret from everyone but close family and friends, so if...Jason hadn't died after all...no one would have thought to look for a living selkie. The few who did know that Jason was a sea creature wouldn't have thought to doubt Bruce.

He'd been so stupid. Why hadn't he tried to confirm the claim with his own eyes, why had he just-?! If Jason really had been alive all this time, where-?! What-?!

Bruce scooped up Tim and nearly ran, grabbing the first Titan he could find to demand answers.

Vic stared at him, his organic eye wide. "Uhhh, I don't think...I'm the one to ask."

Bruce was about to scream at him, then suddenly realized that if Jason really was dead, Vic probably wouldn't have known much about him and would have been more likely to react with confusion or sympathy than apprehension.

Bruce lurched away and started shouting for Dick, but of course that was a mistake. When he did track down the mer, Dick reacted to the shouting with his own shouting. Tim wriggled out of Bruce's arms and dropped into the pool, escaping to the farthest corner as father and son screamed at each other. "JUST TELL ME IF HE'S ALIVE!"

"IT'S NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS IF HE'S ALIVE!"

"OF COURSE IT'S MY BUSINESS, HE'S MY FUCKING SON!"

"I'M YOUR FUCKING SON TOO BUT YOU DON'T CARE IF I'M ALIVE OR DEAD!"

"THAT'S NOT FUCKING TRUE!"

"FUCK YOU!" At which point Dick maturely proceeded to hurl tailfuls of water at Bruce until the man was forced to retreat, drenched.

Bruce didn't stop there, though. He stormed up to the Titans' sleeping quarters, but before he could enter the corridor, Raven and Garfield barred his way. "Stay out of our rooms, man," Gar growled in tiger form.

"I have to see him!" Bruce bellowed.

"Our rooms are our personal havens," Raven said firmly. "You will not enter without permission. Give it more time and-"

Bruce tried to push past them, was stopped by tiger fangs in his leg, and was trying to figure out how to fight free without hurting Gar when shadows obscured his vision and he found himself out on the pier. A minute later, another shadow portal opened just above the water, gently expelled Tim, and closed again.

Bruce yelled into the horizon for a while. Then he fished out a frightened Tim, forced himself to calm down so he convince the child that he wasn't going to hurt him, and set off in a small boat to just...think for a while.

o.o.o

By the time Bruce came back, he had a plan. He went about his evening as normally as he could and did his best to apologize to Dick, though the mer wasn't very gracious about it. Bruce looked up braille to refresh his memory and added it to a pack of playing cards. He waited until about 11:00 at night, after the Titans had left for patrol. Then he dressed in dark clothing and went up to wait on the roof.

He nonverbally explained to Tim that they needed to stay hidden and gave the boy a stress ball and some other soundless toys to keep his tentacles occupied. They passed the time playing cards, Bruce by touch and Tim by sight (his octo-mer eyes could decipher the markings without the help of any artificial light).

At long last, flapping wings and the sound of teenage laughter broke the stillness of the night. The Titans alighted on the roof, teasing and bantering. Bruce's hungry eyes sought out Robin, who was dressed in red and green and calling out to Dick in a painfully familiar voice. "Like hell, Dickface! You're not actually perfect, ya know!"

"Aw, you jealous, Jay?"

The name was a shot in the heart for Bruce, who sat frozen in the shadows as he watched the teens amble across the roof and finally disappear down the stairs. Raptor was the last to go, giving Goliath a pat and some affectionate murmurs, and then the Titans were gone.

Instead of taking off again as usual, Goliath walked over to the dark corner and snuffled at Bruce and Tim. Bruce couldn't really muster up the will to respond, but Tim patted at the beast's snout and signed at him. The next thing Bruce was aware of, he was lying against something very warm and soft. Something cold and damp and pleasantly heavy was sprawled over his chest, and the moon had moved. He must have been asleep for a couple of hours.

He sighed and sat up with Tim in his arms, then struggled creakily to his feet. Leaving Goliath asleep on the roof, he made his way downstairs, laid Tim in the tub in their office/bedroom, then spent nearly two hours composing a letter to his long-lost son.

Once the sun rose, he waited restlessly for any of the other Titans to wake up. Donna and Raptor were the first ones he came across, sparring in the training room.

"Wayne!" Raptor immediately broke off and trotted over to him to report, "I defeated three enemies last night. It would have been six, but my allies keep stealing my targets. I have decided to start patrolling alone."

Bruce wasn't about to let a small child look for criminals to fight on his own, it was bad enough that he did it with teenage companions. "No, Raptor, please don't do that. I'd feel better if you stuck with your team."

"But I don't need help, and they get in my way!"

"All six of those targets from last night count, okay?" Bruce tried. "Your...'score' is six, not three. You don't need to be going off by yourself."

Raptor pouted as he considered this. "Very well. I will make you proud, Wayne."

"I'm already proud of you," Bruce said automatically. The last thing he needed was the guilt of yet another child's insecurity.

Raptor stepped back in alarm. "Why?! I haven't finished yet!"

"You just...you make me proud, okay? And you should be proud of yourself, even if no one else is. You're a good kid."

"You-! You are ignorant of the ways of the world, Wayne!" Raptor shouted, and ran off.

Bruce sighed deeply and turned to the young Amazon. "Donna - good morning, by the way."

"Good morning," she said.

"Will you please give this to Robin?" he asked, holding out the letter.

She took it and looked at it for a minute, then nodded. "Yes, certainly."

Sometime later, Bruce was sitting by the pool, playing catch with Tim as Dick, pointedly ignoring him, horseplayed with Kori at the other end. The sound of stomping footsteps approached, and Bruce turned around. He was not prepared to see Jason, alive and completely undisguised and furious. "What the hell is this?" Jason shouted, shaking the letter in his fist.

Bruce tried to say something. He wasn't sure what. It didn't matter, because his voice didn't work.

"You never fucking looked for me the whole time I was in that crazy ninja cult, too busy REPLACING ME with yer fucking pet octopus," Jason screamed, his Park Row accent growing stronger, "ya threw away Dick and ya threw away me but NOW you wanna pretend we're a family while yer PLAYIN' WITH THE FUCKING OCTOPUS RIGHT THIS DAMN FUCKING MINUTE-! NO! Don't touch me! Don't you fucking touch me!"

Bruce, standing there thwarted with his arms outstretched, watched in pain as his child backed away from him, hurt and fury all over his little freckled face. "J-Jason, please-"

"You said ya wanted t' adopt me!" Jason shouted. "What'dja really want, the publicity?! Stroke yer fucking conscience doin' yer good deed a' the year?! Well YER WELCOME fer lettin' ya off the fucking hook! All the perks an' none a' the headache! Didja have a fuckin' party when ya found out I was outta yer hair?!"

"OF COURSE I DIDN'T!" Bruce bellowed, then wanted to hit himself when Jason flinched back in sudden fear.

The boy rallied immediately, though, whipping a knife out of his hoodie pocket and bellowing back, his hackles fully up in self-defense. "WHERE WERE YOU?! WHEN THEY WERE RIPPING OFF MY SKIN AN' BEATING ME AND KEEPIN' ME LOCKED UP LIKE A FUCKING ANIMAL?! WHERE WERE YOU?!"

"I was falling the fuck apart," Bruce shouted, his heart breaking to hear what his child had suffered. "I was losing my fucking mind because I thought my son was dead."

"Why the hell'dja think I 's dead?!"

"Because I'm a fucking idiot! Because I'm an idiot, Jason!" The sound of his son's name crossing his lips triggered a sudden burst of tears. "I thought you were dead and I couldn't stand it! I lost you and I lost your brother and it was my own fucking fault, it's my fault, I'm so sorry, Jason, I'm sorry, please let me-! Please...!"

"Why d'you always replace us?!" Jason choked out, tears spilling down his cheeks as well. "I didn'- Dick 's- lying bu' then- I saw- the picture...!" He could barely get the words out, pointing savagely at the pool where Tim was a small dark spot at the very bottom.

"You are NOT REPLACEABLE! Dick is not replaceable, for GOD'S sake, if you were then it wouldn't hurt so bloody much to lose you! You know I practically threw Tim back in the fucking ocean when he showed up?! Because I KNEW! This would fucking happen! Again! Love a child, lose that child, feel like my heart got ripped out of my chest! It's fucking killing me! You're killing me, the three of you are killing your father!"

There was a ringing silence, broken by a hysterical giggle from the entryway. Jason's face twitched oddly. "...What?"

"You're...killing me."

"No, that's- not what you said."

Bruce belatedly realized he might have accidentally quoted a Coen brothers movie. "I just meant it feels like-"

"Whatever! Fuck you!" Jason stormed away, shoving past the gaggle of wide-eyed teenagers clustered in the entryway.

Bruce leaned back and ran a shaky hand over his face. He hadn't noticed the audience until just now, and looked away from them only to see Dick and Kori staring at him from the other direction.

Unable to bear the scrutiny, he slipped into the water to retrieve Tim from the bottom of the pool. The mer backed away a bit and signed, "You are angry hurt children?"

"I won't hurt you. I promise," Bruce responded, feeling like a failure in every way. He remained still as Tim approached, the little mer circling around like his brothers tended to do when spooked rather than aiming straight for him.

Bruce tentatively reached out a hand and Tim brushed it with a tentacle. The boy settled behind him, more or less on his shoulders, arms around his head, tentacles wrapped around his chest and back for balance. Tim stayed on his perch for the next half hour, which probably didn't help Bruce's case for not replacing the older boys, but Tim's gaze and Tim's touch were the only ones he could tolerate right now. The child had been there for him at his lowest moments, seen him at his worst, and was the only one Bruce could trust with the raw, oozing wounds in his soul.

TBC

A/N: I think that Bruce would probably recognize the movie quote, but wouldn't be aware it had become a meme. (I have never seen The Big Lebowski, I've only seen the phrase "you're killing your father" a few times on Tumblr, and I had to do several Internet searches before tracking down what I assume is the meme origin.)