The Birds Who Smile, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Deleted sequence: General Foster Care - Part 6 (rough draft)
Outside the Henderson apartment, Batman had set up what cameras he could, then perched on the building opposite. Heat and x-ray scans showed three adult-sized bodies, two in one area of the apartment and the third horizontal in what was probably a bedroom. That one had either a baby or a small pet in the bed with it, it was difficult to tell from this distance. Five child-sized bodies were crammed into what must have been a second bedroom, and an animal was alone in a far corner of the dwelling.
The sixth child-sized body was probably Peter, since it was actively roaming as Batman would have expected Peter to do upon being introduced to a new environment and left to his own devices. The child knelt by the lone animal for a long time, then picked it up and carried it to the room with the sleeping adult and baby/pet, where it looked like he must have crawled under the bed, presumably to sleep. 'And what are you doing all this time, Henderson?' Batman thought resentfully at the motionless larger heat blob in the living room.
He kept vigil for hours. At one point, the smaller adult from the living room came to lie down with the sleeping one, and a few minutes later, they were having sex. Peter's shape jerked in what looked like panic and Batman tensed, but then the boy slowed and wandered out of the room at an unhurried pace, so he'd probably just been startled awake by the noise. The animal, which moved more like a dog than a cat, was practically glued to his heels. Peter looked like he was now searching for something in a different part of the apartment.
Suddenly, the third adult shape, which had been motionless for some time, lumbered upright and marched toward the child. Batman very nearly called out a warning, then cursed his own stupidity; Peter wouldn't be able to hear him from out here. The dog hastily retreated, and Batman was frozen with indecision for a moment, the urge to protect his son warring with the insufficient grounds for intervention. Hopefully, Henderson would keep any attacks purely verbal.
The hope was dashed a second later; she had definitely struck the child, again while Batman went into motion, then a third time while he was shooting out his grapple line. The vigilante could hear her shouting and Peter's furious shrieks and the dog's barking even without the cowl's enhancements. An instant later, he was crashing through the window.
o.o.o.o.o
The problem was that he couldn't just pick up his son and take him home. Even if he wasn't currently surrounded by police officers and frightened children, there was still the fact that Peter, cowering there in the corner with both the real dog and his stuffed one clutched in his arms, would never willingly go anywhere with a person he feared and loathed so much.
"What will be done with the children?" Batman asked one of the officers gruffly.
"CPS is on their way. You know, we've gotten a lot of reports about this place; first time we had enough proof to arrest her. Lucky you were passing by when you did."
"I was tracking down a lead in a different case, but the children are more important." The officer's attention was pulled elsewhere, and Batman very carefully signed to the boy in the corner, "You are safe?"
"...Stay away!"
"Yes."
After a long pause, the corner of Peter's mouth curled up. Batman went breathless and didn't dare move for fear he'd destroy the moment. "Good hit."
"...I want to protect you."
The little lopsided smile turned to bared teeth and a hiss. Batman melted out of the apartment and went to keep watch on a different building.
It was now a little after dawn, and Tim's voice came through the comm. "Are you going to work today?"
"...Are you?"
"Probably."
"Did you sleep at all last night?"
"...Yes."
"Micro-naps don't count. Did you sleep for at least two continuous hours, Red Robin?"
"So you are going in to work, then?" the teen challenged.
Batman closed his eyes briefly in frustration. Work was the last place he wanted to be today, but he knew that if he didn't go in, his sleep-deprived son would. Tim needed rest. "Yes. I just want to see who comes to pick up Bird 2, then I'll head back."
"Fine."
o.o.o.o.o
"Hi there, Peter!"
[caw] cautiously watched the new approaching big person.
"My name is Cole Sullivan. Nice to meet you!" "Friendly, curious."
Big people wanted you to shake their hands when they stuck them out like this, so [caw] did.
"Looks like I'm your new social worker! And you're the first one of your brothers I get to meet. I hear there's two more?"
[caw] knew that word 'brothers.' "Jjohnny Jjja'ckk mmy bboddas. Ggimme."
"That's right, John and Peter and Jack. We're gonna go on back to the main office, okay? I got a looootta phone calls to make about you!"
[caw] didn't mind going with the man, but they wanted him to leave Sad Poop behind. "NO! NO NO NO NO NOOOO!"
"Uh...Peter...seriously, we can't take the dog with us..."
o.o.o.o.o
Batman looked up Cole Sullivan and was dismayed to find how young the man was - this was his first job other than the part-time work he'd done in college, and he'd only been hired a month ago. He didn't seem upset by Peter's tantrum, but was helpless and confused when the boy refused to be soothed. After a while, Cole started working on his phone, leaving Peter to scream and kick on the floor. By now, Sherry had been taken away, her daughter was wearily still talking to the police, the daughter's boyfriend had vanished, and all the other children had been picked up by their social workers. With no one feeding Peter's tantrum, he eventually calmed down.
An animal control worker had arrived by that time and was watching Peter warily. "They sent me out for a dog, but maybe I should take the kid instead," he joked to Cole.
"Hah! Don't do that," Cole laughed. "Poor puppy, I think it's been abused or something. The daughter and boyfriend didn't want it, so I guess it's going to the pound?"
"If the kid'll let me have it."
"Well, I can't let him take it... Here, I'm going to distract him with some candy."
Peter was successfully distracted, but when the dog was picked up, it started making high-pitched yelps like screams, and Peter started screaming again, too. He attacked the animal control worker until Cole managed to haul him off. The worker tossed the dog into his van, scrambled into the driver's seat, and drove away with a screech of tires. Cole held Peter in a restraint, checking to make sure he'd gotten it right, until Peter's screams finally dissolved into tears. Batman, watching, found himself trembling with anger and helplessness.
"D'ddo'ggie...ddo'ggie...!" the boy wailed brokenly.
"Aw...it's okay, Peter," Cole said awkwardly. "Some foster families have dogs, maybe you'll meet another cute one soon." He managed to haul the child to his car. Peter, finding yet another horrible seatbelt being fastened around him, pushed and fought, but he was so tired, so sad that it made him tired, he couldn't stop the man from tying him. He cried for Sad Poop, and he reached for Dog instead, but he couldn't find Dog and it didn't matter anyway because Dog was just a thing, Dog wasn't alive, Sad Poop was alive and scared and they were probably going to eat her, and he would never see her again. She was so sad and he'd wanted her to be happy, but now she was even more sad. Maybe it was his fault...he lied to her, he told her it would be okay, but it wasn't okay...
Batman, after confirming that Cole was heading to the agency's headquarters to drop off Peter, went after the animal control van. He made his way inside while it was still moving, got hold of the filthy, squirming white terrier mix, and grappled off into the sunrise without the driver even being aware of his presence.
The dog would not stop barking for thirty straight minutes. Finally, she lay down in a corner of the Batmobile and started whining instead, high-pitched noises that sounded like weeping, and that was even worse. "Just...hold on, we're almost home," Batman muttered.
When he got to the Batcave, he found that the entire rest of the household had gone to bed already, so he was the one who had to get the dog settled. He didn't have time to care for her properly, but he made sure that the crate he put her in was large, and he included some toys with her water and food, the latter which she attacked as if she was starving. He texted Alfred and Damian to alert them of the manor's latest occupant, then hurried to shower and change before heading off again, this time to Wayne Enterprises.
o.o.o.o.o
After Cole dropped off Peter at the agency's main office, he drove over to the Reynards' house to pick up Jack's things.
"How is he?" Ginny asked as she and her husband helped Cole load the car.
"I actually haven't even seen him yet! I only just got assigned to them today; the only one I've met so far is Peter."
"I just can't believe it... He's only six, yet he ran away and took a taxi to Bristol all by himself, what sort of child does that?!"
Cole whistled, impressed. "A pretty smart one, I guess." And a lucky one, to have made such a journey safely in Gotham.
"I thought he was happy! We were kind to him, we took good care of him, he was such a good, sweet boy. Then he goes and does this behind our backs! What sort of child does that?! He's six!"
"Now you're making me curious." He shut the trunk of the car.
Louis Reynard shook his hand. "Well, tell Jack we wish him the best."
"Will do." Cole drove all the way to Wayne Manor, grateful for the invention of GPS, otherwise he would have gotten completely lost. When he finally made it to the front doors, an actual butler answered. "Wow! That's so cool, I didn't know people still have butlers. Do I put Jack's things here in the hall, or...?"
"That will do for now."
Once all Jack's luggage was inside, Cole asked if he could talk to the boy himself. "Figure I'd better meet him, since I'm his social worker now."
The butler's tone was so chilly that Cole felt his spine creep. "Surely you don't intend to take the child to a different residence?"
"Oh, no, geez, they're going crazy about these kids back at the office, I'm just glad you don't want me to haul him out of here. Poor kid just got kicked out, I feel bad for him."
"I see." The butler showed him into a fancy den, where The Incredibles was playing on a giant TV. Dick Grayson was dozing on a couch that looked big, but seemed small because there was also a child, a Great Dane, and a cat crammed onto it. The dog was also asleep, stretched out contentedly alongside the humans; the cat was curled up by Dick's head; the boy was huddled between the young man and the dog as he sucked on a chew fidget and watched the movie. As soon as Cole entered, the child tightened his grip on Grayson and started to whimper, and a second dog, a little fluffy white thing huddled on a pillow nearby, immediately leaped to its feet and started barking.
Grayson groaned at the noise.
"Oh, man, I didn't mean to bother you!" Cole said quickly, raising his hands. "I just wanted to meet you real quick, Jack."
The child stared at him fearfully. Grayson sat up, forcing the Great Dane to shift, and put both arms around the little boy. "Please don't take him. His life's been disrupted enough, and we want to keep him. He'll start screaming and maybe hurt somebody if you try to take him."
"Oh, no, I just wanted to meet him! I mean, I'm his social worker; I'm supposed to meet my kids, right?"
The child looked even more terrified, now clinging to Grayson with both little hands.
"Hey, Jack," Cole said gently. "My name's Cole. I'm your new social worker, I'm just here to drop off your stuff. You know, if this is a good home for you, you get to stay here, right?" He hadn't had time to read much of the Joker kids' files yet, but it was pretty clear that the Waynes, despite putting them into foster care in the first place, still wanted them, and that nobody else did.
"His prime being lives here," Grayson went on, his voice as tense as his body. "Tim's seventeen but he's legally emancipated, he's rich enough to take care of a kid, and he loves Jack. Bruce will adopt Jack if Tim can't. Jack loves Tim, too, he's used to living here, you can't take him away."
Cole was starting to get the feeling he wasn't wanted. "Uh...well, like I said, I'm just here to drop off his stuff. Jack, I'm not a bad guy, okay?" He held out his hand to shake. After two minutes of trying to convince the child to greet him, he finally just gave up; he was starting to get texts about the other two Joker kids, anyway. "Well, it was good to meet you. I'll see you guys later, okay?"
"Ggoo'dbbye, goo'dbbye, goo'dbbye," the child chanted like it was a ward against evil.
"Bye, Jack." Cole headed out after Peter again.
To be continued...
A/N: Why is this scenario so long?! I keep trying to at least get into the final stretch, but the story just keeps getting longer and longer and longer, like TBWS itself. X''''D I think Peter's and Jack's plotlines will resolve soon, but John's is long.