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

Part 2 (rough draft)

It was a long drive. They had to stop a few times to stretch, use the restroom, and make sure the mer were hydrated. About halfway there, Bruce stopped in a small town and knocked on the back door of a restaurant, offering to pay for the use of their hose. Fascinated employees gathered to watch.

Dick hopped off his wheelchair onto a patch of grass; Jason set Tim down beside him. Steph turned on the water and Bruce held the hose over the two mer, alternating so that each boy got a chance under the spray. The mer, who were less bothered by cold temperatures than humans were, appreciated the refreshment. Dick kept posing like the ham he was; Tim sat still and content like a flower being watered.

Bruce finally gestured for Steph to turn the water off. "Thank you," he said as he and the restaurant owner worked to coil the hose.

"No problem! I can't believe they're real mermaids!"

"They're both male; the term 'mermaid' is for females. 'Mer' is gender-neutral."

Their destination turned out to be a fancy estate covered with crime scene tape. The courtyard looked fairly untouched except for some disturbed gravel, but once Bruce and his procession of sea children entered the house, they found more of a mess. The place was opulent, but things had been knocked over and scattered, and there were bullet holes in the walls. Police officers and specialists were spread out, working.

Of greatest interest to Bruce was the gigantic meandering aquarium: it seemed to stretch from one end of the vast house to the other, bending and curving around the rooms. One thick transparent panel was badly damaged; duct tape sealed the cracks, but a bit of water was still leaking. The aquarium was very clean, but there were still traces that showed the original waterline a few inches above the current one. Exotic fish obliviously swam past.

"Where's the mer?" Bruce said in alarm. No one had told him the kid's tank was leaking.

"Watching us like a creep," one of the cops said, gesturing.

Bruce wondered how he'd missed it. The merboy was on the far side of the living room, but stood out clearly in his surroundings as he watched a detective fill an evidence bag. The boy had dark brown skin and his tail was like that of a barracuda, except it was yellow. He looked to be about sixteen years old and wore no clothes.

The merboy had been watching the detective intently, but his attention switched to the newcomers as soon as he caught sight of them. His mouth came open in shock. He couldn't seem to decide whether to focus on Dick in his wheelchair or Kori with her literally flaming hair and Tim riding on her back with his clinging tentacles.

"Ohh," Bruce exhaled. He was so used to his own kids that he sometimes forgot how breathtaking mer could be.

Dick signed at the captive boy in mer language, but the boy seemed confused by Dick's 'flying fish' dialect. Dick smiled ruefully and remarked in ASL, "We'll get you out."

Greer stepped up beside Bruce. "Welp, that's him," the man said. "What do you think?"

"How do we get him out of the tank?" Bruce said in dismay. He checked one of the discreet hatches that allowed the aquarium to be cleaned, but as he expected, there wasn't enough room for a teenager to fit.

"Not sure, honestly."

Bruce and the kids split up to investigate, the barracuda mer closely following Dick, Kori, and Tim. Bruce eventually came upon an inner room that had aquarium access and various related supplies and equipment. This part of the aquarium looked like it had a chamber that could potentially be sealed and drained of water without disturbing the rest of the structure, and its panels looked designed to be removed. Bruce eventually unearthed a manual that explained how it all worked.

He tracked down his kids to tell them where to go. The barracuda mer followed willingly enough until they neared the aquarium maintenance room, at which point the boy balked.

"The maintenance room is the only place we'll be able to get him out," Bruce said.

"Come on, it's safe, I promise!" Dick signed encouragingly.

"Got a chair all ready for you," Jason added, demonstratively rocking the empty wheelchair he was pushing.

The captive boy watched as some of the Waynes crowded into the maintenance room. He dipped down to peer at them, but it took a long time before he finally responded to Dick's coaxing, warily drifting into the chamber. When Bruce sealed it off, the mer jerked in alarm, then bared his teeth and knocked his fist against the tank wall.

"I know, kid, I know," Bruce said, signing as well as speaking. "It's scary, but I promise, we're going to get you out and get you somewhere better as soon as we can." He stopped signing and glanced over his shoulder. "You have that fish ready, Steph?"

"Ready to go, boss," she said cheerfully, hefting the cooler filled with ice and frozen fish.

Bruce turned back to the captive boy. "We're going to remove the water now."

Of course the boy couldn't hear him through the tank wall and couldn't understand either his speech or his signing, but he seemed to know what to expect. He didn't react to the lowering water level, just watched Bruce intently as he slowly sank and then came to rest on the bottom of the tank.

Once all the water in the chamber was gone, Bruce cautiously opened the panel. "Hello."

The boy frowned at him, then looked at Dick. Dick smiled. "Hi! I'm Dick. We came to get you out!"

The boy stared at him, then at the fish Steph offered.

"I know it's dead, but we've got live food back at home," Bruce said. "We only use frozen food when we're traveling."

"You know he can't understand a word you're saying," Greer called through the doorway.

"He'll never learn if we don't start somewhere," Bruce said through gritted teeth.

The barracuda mer took the offered fish, looked at it for a moment, then held it out to Dick.

"That's yours!" Dick laughed.

"Eat it, Dick," Bruce said. He had no idea why the captive boy would give away food, but there had to be a reason, and it would almost certainly be better for Dick to accept his offering than not.

Dick shrugged and gulped down the fish. The other mer looked at the cooler and Steph held out a second fish. This time, the boy ate it.

"What is his name?" Kori asked.

If he even had one, no one present would know it. "We should call him Barry the barracuda," Steph suggested.

She made it sound like half a joke, but Bruce knew how joke names could stick. "We already know a Barry. Pick something different."

His kids tossed around a few suggestions, some silly, some not. They finally settled on Leo. The merboy watched the debate with an inscrutable expression.

"Leo," Bruce said. "Your name is Leo. You, Leo." The boy blinked and didn't respond. "All right," Bruce said. Now for the part he was worried about. "That is a wheelchair," he said, pointing at the empty one. "Wheelchair. People use wheelchairs when they have trouble walking. Dick has a wheelchair, see?" Dick waved. "Dick uses wheelchair," Bruce simplified, pointing. "You, Leo, will use wheelchair. Okay? I'm going to pick you up and put you in the wheelchair so we can get you out of here."

Carefully, he moved closer and leaned to pick up the merboy, telegraphing his movements. To his surprise, the boy didn't resist. He did clutch at Bruce's shirt as if prepared to shove the man away, but he didn't fight when Bruce got close, put his arms around him, and lifted him. "All right. Now I will put you in the wheelchair." He set the boy down.

Leo frowned and shifted, leaning over to inspect the vehicle. "Now," Bruce said, "you see how Dick is wearing a tail sleeve? We have a long car ride ahead of us, so you need a sleeve to protect your tail from drying out. We need the sleeve for your tail." He pointed at the mer's tail. "Tail." He held up a fresh sleeve. "Tail sleeve. The sleeve goes on your tail."

As he filled the sleeve with the hydrating oily solution, he chatted, "These sleeves are biodegradable plastic so we don't add to the pollution problem, though we do have to compost them ourselves to make sure it gets done properly. Okay." He held up the bottle. "It's better if I put some directly onto your tail, too. Okay?" Leo didn't look happy to have oil drizzled on him, but although he gritted his teeth, he didn't resist.

"Now we're just going to get this on you, and then it'll last for hours. Dick used to be able to wear one all day at school." Leo watched uncomfortably as Bruce worked the sleeve over his tail, with Kori's help.

Leo's eyes flicked around to the watching sea kids. Cass smiled at him and touched his shoulder. "You safe," she signed. "Bruce good."

Once the sleeve was on, Bruce gave the boy another fish. Leo ate it quickly and neatly, then twisted around to look when Bruce started pushing him. He stared at Dick, who was easily propelling himself.

The family had almost made it to the front door when Leo grabbed Bruce's arm and shoved hard. Bruce stopped. "What's wrong, Leo?"

Leo pushed his hands away completely, then inspected the wheelchair. He finally set his own hands on the wheels and pushed. The chair moved forward a few inches.

"He wants to do it himself," Jason observed. He moved forward and pointed. "Here're the handles, see? You hold onto these and sort of push downward."

Leo had already been experimenting with his grip. His movements were slow and jerky, but he was able to propel himself out of the house completely under his own power. Outside, he stopped and squinted.

"These are sunglasses," Bruce said, pulling out a spare pair. "Sunglasses. If you wear them on your face, it will protect your eyes from the sun. Tim wears sunglasses, see?"

Leo reached out to take the item, paused, then clumsily but correctly worked them onto his face. He peered around. "Good job," Bruce praised.

As they all proceeded around the circular driveway, it occurred to Bruce that the mer hadn't made any sounds at all or attempted to sign in his native dialect. He wondered sadly if the boy was like Cass, who had never learned language.

Leo watched the other kids open the car, Jason packing the trunk and Steph helping Cass get buckled up. He seemed particularly interested to see Dick expertly hop out of his wheelchair, fold it up, then haul himself from the car floor into one of the seats. Leo looked back at the house he had been held captive in for a long moment. Then he leaned forward and braced his hands against the floor of the car, trying to haul himself out of his own chair.

"You'll need to develop more upper body strength if you want to hop around like Dick," Bruce explained, boosting him up. He dug a shirt out of one of the bags. "This is a shirt. Shirt. Like mine, see? You should wear it to protect you from getting chafed by the seatbelt."

Leo seemed almost completely unbothered by being dressed, but he did resist the seatbelt for a minute. Then he looked hard at Dick and the others nonchalantly wearing their seatbelts. He continued to shove at Bruce, but half-heartedly enough that Bruce was eventually able to dodge his hands and get the buckle fastened.

Once everyone was loaded up and ready, Bruce turned to Greer, who was watching with his hands in his pockets. "Thank you for calling me."

"Sure. Stay available and don't get rid of the kid until I give you the all-clear."

"Fine."

As soon as they pulled out of the driveway, Bruce enlisted Jason's help in looking up hotel options and dialing the number of their final pick. Bruce got hold of the manager and negotiated a price for reserving the indoor pool for his family instead of a proper room. By the time he hung up, he'd been driving for about half an hour, and it was another half hour before they reached the hotel in question.

Bruce left the kids in the van and went inside alone. "Is the pool ready?" he asked once he'd been met by the manager.

"Not quite, sir, but we're working as quickly as we can."

Bruce knew that the request had been pretty last minute and that it would take time to finish evicting the other guests and covering the window wall. That didn't change the fact that he had a van full of tired, hungry children. "Call me as soon as the guests are gone and the windows are covered, I don't care about anything else. And the fewer people who know details about this, the better."

"Of course, sir."

He returned to the van and checked on Leo, who was cautiously playing tic-tac-toe with Steph (she had apparently taught him during the drive). "You doing all right, Leo?" Bruce asked. Of course the mer didn't answer, but he did gaze intently at Bruce. There was such strong intelligence and emotion in his eyes, Bruce had no idea why human beings as a whole had taken so long to acknowledge the personhood of these creatures. "We'll get you some food and water very soon, just wait a little bit longer."

He made the rounds with the others. Tim was dozing in Jason's lap as the older boy read a book. Cass was petting Dick, who was sprawled against her and whining with boredom and fatigue. Kori was on the phone and having a lively conversation with someone, probably Donna, about battle tactics. Bruce sat back in the driver's seat and called Damian to pass the time, which eventually turned into a vidchat so that Thomas, Martha, Alfred, and Athanasia could join in.

The manager finally called, and Bruce drove around to the glass doors that opened directly into the indoor pool area. Employees waiting to assist looked a bit askance at the old church van, then promptly forgot about it in favor of staring at the procession of sea children in amazement. "We don't need anything," Bruce told the one who looked to be in charge. Technically, no one had had to come except the security guard who had the keys for the door. "Just privacy."

"Oh, er...yes, sir," the woman said. "Let us know if there's anything else we can do." The guard locked the glass doors and the hotel employees reluctantly left.

Bruce exhaled and then turned to survey the kids. Almost all of them were already in the water: the selkies and Kori (still fully-clothed, though her outfit didn't cover much more than a bathing suit would, anyway) were enthusiastically splashing at each other; Dick was zooming around in circles; Leo was exploring his new environment more cautiously; Tim was inspecting the skimmer, which Bruce should probably get him away from. Cass was crouched at the edge of the water and leaning out, watching her siblings.

"Come play with us, Cass!" Steph swam over to the younger girl, grabbed her, and hauled her in.

Bruce went to scoop up Tim, who reached down for the skimmer with three limbs. "No, kiddo, let's leave that alone, okay?" Bruce looked up to find Leo watching him from the middle of the pool. He smiled at the boy, then went to his bag to load up Tim's tentacles with toys before dropping him in the pool again.

Once the kids had gotten past their initial excitement at being out of the car and in the water, Bruce organized them for dinner and then bed, calling the front desk at one point to have blankets and pillows delivered. Some of the kids settled down with a movie on Tim's tablet, and Jason curled up with a book. Bruce brushed Cass's hair and chatted to her just as a way to spend time with her. Dick and Kori curled up together in a blanket nest, talking quietly. Halfway through the movie, Tim came to cuddle with Bruce, who just enjoyed holding his son for a while.

When Tim had dozed off, his tentacles limp and still, Bruce went to carefully set the little mer in the pool. He looked up to find Leo watching him again, just a bit out of arm's reach. Bruce sat down cross-legged and said, "Hi, Leo."

The boy tilted his head slightly.

"My name is Bruce. You are Leo. You were in a bad place, but now I'm taking you somewhere safe. I will call King Arthur soon. He lives in Atlantis. Arthur will be able to provide a good home in the ocean for you." Bruce wanted to give Leo at least a few days at the beach house to recover, but then he was going to call Arthur about long-term plans. He did not share Greer's reluctance to inform the sea king about the predicament of one of his own people.

Leo's eyes flicked between Bruce and Dick. Then he pointed at each in turn and tilted his head in inquiry.

Bruce smiled. "Dick is my son. He was my first child. He lived in captivity just like you, but we became friends. Then, when he was freed, I took him to my home and tried to be a good dad. My house is too full now for me to be your dad, but I will make sure you end up somewhere safe. I am very glad you're free now."

Leo considered. He pointed at Bruce and Dick again, then gently cupped his hands over his own heart.

"Does that mean 'love'? This is the ASL sign for 'love.' Yes, I love Dick very much. He is precious to me. I love my other children very much, too. Jason, Tim, Cass, and Steph are also my children, and I love them. I also have two other children who are not here right now. Kori is not my child, but I care about her, too. I want you all to be safe and happy."

Leo considered some more. He drew in a breath, and for a wild moment, Bruce thought he might speak, perhaps in mer language. The next moment, however, the boy exhaled. He gave a small smile, then swam back to where the other kids were watching their movie. The young mer seemed to be adjusting shockingly well to his change in circumstances. Bruce hoped it wasn't too good to be true.

TBC

A/N: Biodegradable plastics exist, but if you're using them as a green alternative to typical plastics, make sure to do your research, otherwise they're not a much better choice than petroleum-based plastics.