Gifts From the Sea: Safe Signal, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

Part 1 (rough draft)

By now, Bruce was so used to waking up in damp bedding that he barely even noticed anymore. He peered blurrily at the sea child beside him and identified them as Tim, busily working away as usual.

Ever since Steph had taught the little octo-mer how to braid, Tim had been practicing enough to annoy everyone, so Bruce had made a new toy for the kid by fastening a bunch of cords to a rod. Tim dragged the thing with him almost everywhere, and was currently holding the rod still in two tentacles so he could braid with his hands. Two more tentacles were working on a Rubik's Cube and another was clinking the old set of measuring spoons. Another tentacle was wrapped around Bruce's wrist.

"G'morning," Bruce mumbled.

Tim stopped braiding but kept hold of the rod. "Good morning."

"Mmm." Bruce lay there for a while, trying to convince himself to get up. His alarm was going to go off in two minutes, it wasn't worth trying to fall back asleep. Tim leaned over and rested his head against Bruce's.

"Love you, kiddo."

"I love you," the boy responded in octo-mer sign.

They lay still together until the alarm went off. Tim, as usual, hated it and darted out a tentacle to swat at the clock. Bruce tried to rescue the clock before it could get damaged. The tussle woke him up enough that it wasn't too difficult to sit upright afterward. He sighed and rubbed at his face. Tim climbed onto his shoulders, and Bruce chuckled at the damp, slimy weight. "Well, that's one way to encourage me into the shower."

When he came out of the bathroom, Tim was gone and Cass was haunting the hallway, intently gazing into his room. She perked up when she saw him.

"Good morning, Cass," he told her, gentle and affectionate. Just the sight of her stirred up his protective instincts: no child should have as many scars as she did, or have so much trouble vocalizing.

"Good morning," she signed back, then whispered, "Hi."

He kissed the top of her head and lightly set a hand on her shoulder, guiding her to the kitchen where he could smell food cooking.

Steph was making breakfast and Jason was packing lunches. "Good morning," Bruce called to them.

"Mornin', B," Steph sang out, and Jason grunted in distracted acknowledgment.

"Pancakes today?" Bruce said, starting to set the table. Cass helped unprompted, and ended up doing the bulk of it since Bruce got preoccupied preventing Tim from stealing and playing with the silverware.

"With fruit faces!" Steph confirmed, brandishing a strawberry.

The whole family sat down together (at least, all those currently in the beach house): Bruce, Jason, Tim, Cass, and Steph. Bruce gave Tim a large bowl of fish, and the rest of them started eating their pancakes and sausage. "You finished your homework?" Bruce asked.

"Yep," Steph said.

"Anything for me to sign?"

"Nope."

Bruce looked at Cass and asked as clearly as he could, signing as he spoke and exaggerating his body language, "Cassandra, are you excited to go to school today?"

"No. Scared."

He stared at her.

Jason snorted. "You gonna cave and let her stay home?"

"Bruce, no!" Steph objected. She'd been looking forward to having her little sister come with her to school. The plan was for Cass to only go once a week for the time being, and today was scheduled to be her very first day.

Cass tentatively touched Bruce's arm, then signed, "I scared. I go." She straightened her shoulders, tucked her hands, and smiled in an anxious sort of way. Bruce studied her closely and finally decided that she meant she was nervous, but still wanted to go. Cass relaxed, looked at Steph, and signed, "I love you."

Steph smiled and blew a kiss at the younger girl.

After breakfast, there was a flurry of activity as Jason cleaned up and Bruce got the girls ready to go. Then he got Tim's attention and said firmly, "Tim, be good. I am going to leave to take the girls to school, and then I will come back with Janette."

"I want to go with you."

"No, you have to stay here." He was going to have his hands full making sure Cass was settled. "I will be back soon with Janette. Please be good." Tim tried to climb on him. Bruce managed to escape with Jason's help, then practically ran out the door to avoid being caught again.

They sailed over to the mainland and dropped off Steph at the secondary school, then Bruce walked Cass next door to the elementary school. He had a hard time detaching from her, but the teacher eventually managed to shoo him away. He still spied through the window in the classroom door for about twenty minutes, but Cass didn't seem to be too distressed. Very reluctantly, he doublechecked to make sure his phone was on and then drifted away.

He stopped by the post office and the grocery store, then headed for Janette's house to pick her up. Back home, they found Jason doing schoolwork on the coffee table and Tim sprawled on his stomach nearby, looking at photos on his tablet with one tentacle curled around Jason's ankle.

"Good morning, Tim!" Janette said brightly. "Good morning, Jason."

" 'Sup," Jason mumbled without looking up from his work.

At the sound of the young woman's voice, Tim went perfectly still for a moment. Then he rapidly crawled over to his suitcase and climbed inside it to hide.

"Aww, Timmy," she laughed. "Time for school!"

Tim was, as always, reluctant to start, but once Bruce had coaxed him out and gotten the octo-mer and his tutor settled outside, Janette managed to catch his attention with an activity. Bruce watched them for a few minutes just to make sure everything was all right. Janette sat at the pool's edge, enthusiastically encouraging participation; Tim hovered in the water, absently working at fidgets and focusing most of his attention on matching analogies.

Bruce went back to the living room and sat down on the floor by Jason. "How are you doing?"

"Fine."

"You need any help?"

"Nope."

Bruce watched his son work for a moment. Then he reached out and pulled the boy into his arms, wrapping him up securely and resting his chin on Jason's head.

"Daaaad," Jason whined.

"I love you, Jay," Bruce murmured.

Jason sighed. He rested quietly in his father's arms for a long minute, then mumbled, "Love you, too."

Bruce gave him one last squeeze, kissed the top of his head, then climbed to his feet and went to do housework.

He'd been working for a couple of hours when his phone rang. He checked the screen quickly, his heart pounding, but it wasn't Cass's school like he feared. He didn't recognize the number, so he let it go to voicemail and then checked the message as soon as the notification for it popped up.

The caller was someone in law enforcement. The man was skimpy on details, but he left enough information for Bruce to look him up. The name and contact information checked out, so Bruce cautiously called back.

"Greer."

"Hello, Mr. Greer. This is Bruce Wayne, returning your call."

"Ah, you're the mermaid guy, right?"

Bruce gritted his teeth, but the man didn't sound overeager like a fan, just businesslike with a light dusting of curiosity. "If you need to speak to someone about mer, you can contact the Atlantean embassy."

Greer snorted. "I've seen how 'his majesty' reacted to seeing captive mer kids. I'm gonna hold off on that for the time being."

"What about captive mer kids?" Bruce said, straightening intently.

"Just one. We busted a drug lord last night, and he had a pet mer we've gotta find something to do with. I was told you're famous for being a normal human who fosters sea kids."

Bruce rubbed at the bridge of his nose, torn. On one hand, his heart immediately went out to the mer child who'd been suffering in captivity for who knew how long. On the other, he already had seven children to worry about, not even counting the rest of the Teen Titans. Even just the four kids living with him full-time could really be a handful sometimes.

"I'm a single parent, and I'm already at the legally allowed limit for foster children. I had to make special arrangements in order to take in the newest girls. I really think you'd be better off contacting Atlantis."

"We'd work with you on this - get you an exception to the limit, a nanny or something, whatever. We just need someone to take this kid while the investigation's active - as soon as it's over, you can do whatever you want with him."

"Whatever I want?" Bruce said harshly. "You're handing over a child with no concern for his wellbeing?"

Greer made a scoffing sound. "Look, time was, we'd just give the mer to a sanctuary or a zoo or something and be done with it. But apparently mer are 'people' now, except they're not normal kids so CPS can't do much, and we don't want the damn king of the mermaids deciding to drown us all for insulting his people or whatever, so you're it, Wayne. Are you gonna take the kid or not?"

"I'm coming to get him today," Bruce said grimly. He couldn't leave the child in the hands of people who might not treat him well. "It's a three-hour drive and I need to pick up half my kids from school and we'll need time to pack supplies, but I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Got it," Greer said, sounding satisfied. He rattled off an address. As soon as Bruce hung up, he strode to open the side door and bellowed loud enough for both boys to hear, "Jason! Tim! We're going on a road trip."

"We're going on a what now?" Jason said in disbelief.

Bruce called Dick, but the kid didn't answer his phone. He called the Tower.

"Bruce?"

"Hey, Vic. Is Dick around?"

"Probably. You need to talk to him?"

"Yes, please. It's important." Bruce was only bringing the beach house children because Tim and Cass were too young to be left alone and he was paranoid about any of them getting hurt or kidnapped, but if he was going to be collecting a strange mer to take home with him, he'd need Dick to help smooth the way.

There was one more call to make. "Master Bruce?"

"Hi, Alfred, just keeping you all in the loop. Assuming plans don't change, I'm going to be fostering another mer soon. I'm rounding up the kids right now so we can go pick him up."

"Ah - have you talked to Ms. Swain about this?" Deborah Swain was one of the social workers involved with Bruce's growing family.

"Not yet. I don't know how long I'll have this boy or how well he'll settle in - I haven't even met him yet. I'd...prefer to wait a bit before we notify anyone, like we did with the girls." Steph and Cass had lived with him unofficially for over a month before they'd all finally felt safe enough to legitimize the girls' placement.

"I see. I will pass the news on to Master Thomas and Mistress Martha when they return."

"Thank you, Alfred. Give Damian and Asia my love."

Janette kept Tim safely occupied while Bruce and Jason scurried around the house, packing. A Boom Tube opened on the beach at one point. Bruce went out onto the porch just in time to see Kori float through the portal with Dick slung comfortably over her shoulders.

"Dick," Bruce scolded, "don't use her as a packhorse, she's going to get stranded he-" Too late; the Boom Tube vanished.

"Hi, Dad," Dick called.

"Kori, I'm so sorry," Bruce apologized.

She frowned in confusion. "Why?"

"Weren't you...going to head back to the Tower?"

She looked at him like he was crazy. "Dick will have a new brother. I will say hi."

"Oh." Bruce mentally adjusted his road trip plans to include a Tamaranean princess. "He's not a brother, I'm just saving him from some idiots so we can figure out what to do with him. He'll probably end up in Atlantis soon."

Jason poked his head out and asked where the spare bottles of oily solution were to keep the mer hydrated. Bruce went to find them, and by the time he came back, Dick and Kori were having a wheelchair race up and down the front walk. "Stop playing around and help," Bruce said in exasperation.

They eventually got the boat loaded up and headed for the mainland, Kori flying and the boys swimming because most of the room in the boat was taken up with luggage. Bruce dropped off Janette, spent about half an hour at the nearest church explaining his situation and being lent the church's van for the occasion, then went to pick up the girls from school. "I'm sorry your first day got cut short, sweetheart," Bruce told Cass, who was looking confused but happy to see him. "An emergency came up and we have to go on a little trip."

"Are we skipping school tomorrow?" Steph asked.

"Probably," Bruce said. There was no way he was going to drive six hours in one day with six kids one way and seven kids the other; they were probably going to have to spend the night at a hotel.

"Whoo!"

They hadn't been on the road long when Bruce got a call from Damian, who wanted to come along on the adventure. "Damian, it's way too far for us to go get you, and we still have no idea what the boy's emotional state will be. If he's not too upset, you can come visit on the weekend, all right?"

"But how can I welcome him properly if I am not even there for his arrival?"

"Why don't you draw him something. I bet he'd like that. You can give it to him when you come this weekend."

"Hmmm..."

TBC

A/N: Ftr, Steph was 13 when she met Bruce, and as I've said before, Cass is about the same age as Damian and Tim.