The Birds Who Smile, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

Deleted sequence: General Foster Care - Part 7 (rough draft)

He had to drive all the way back to the main office to get Peter again, because they'd finally found someone who'd take him as an emergency placement. "He's not an inmate or anything," Cole made sure to tell the hard-faced woman and man who approached him in the lobby. He could feel Peter pressing into his side, and he felt bad. "He wasn't arrested, it's just an emergency foster placement. Be nice to him, okay?"

"We know what to do with kids who bite," the woman said ominously.

Cole didn't like the way she was looking at Peter, or how frightened Peter looked. He knelt to put his hands on the boy's shoulders. "Hey, Petey, so this is just temporary, okay? I think the Waynes want you back, they're probably working on getting custody, but for now, you're just going to be here for a little while, okay? I'll call you every day to see how you're doing. Just don't bite anyone, be good, and you'll probably do fine, okay?"

"...[chirp-chirp], [warble]."

"Um, and maybe don't make bird noises, because the kids might make fun of you for that." He stood up again and patted Peter's shoulder. "You'll be okay."

It wasn't okay, though. When the other man took Peter's arm and tried to pull him away, Peter hissed and clung to Cole. The situation rapidly deteriorated, and then Cole was staring as three bleeding and shouting adults pinned a screaming, writhing, panicked child to the floor, and he understood now why the last social worker had quit and why the kids had such a hard time being placed.

He turned away and called the office. "Hey, so, uh! I just dropped off Peter the bird kid, or I'm trying to, but Ree, this is not going well! Like, at all. He's scared and they're making it worse, I have to take him to a different foster home!"

"Cole, THERE IS NO OTHER FOSTER HOME. No one wants him! No one wants these kids, even the freaking Wayne Foundation doesn't want them."

Cole knew what she was referring to. "They're not getting rid of John, they're just switching him with a different home. Peter, though - I mean, it's bad, Ree. They've got him all pinned, treating him like a criminal, he's just a kid, Ree! He bites and stuff because he's scared! Jack didn't try to bite at Wayne Manor; can I take Peter back to the Waynes?"

"Cole, Wayne put him in foster care, Grayson made himself ineligible, and the prime doesn't give two flips about his clone. I don't know what strings they're pulling or what lawyers they're talking to, but as of this moment, the files I'm looking at are stuffed with can'ts. We're lucky that anyone will take them."

"Ree...Ree, I can't just leave him here." Cole's heart broke as he watched Peter being dragged away, screaming. "Oh no, they forgot his dog- Ree, I'll call you back, okay?" He hung up and went to retrieve the stuffed dog from the floor where it had fallen and been kicked aside. He wasn't fast enough following them, and he couldn't get through the set of doors when they automatically locked behind the people forcing Peter down the hall. By the time Cole had gotten hold of the director, convinced him to allow the door to be opened, and waited ages until a grudging custodian finally trudged up to unlock it, he had no idea where Peter was.

"I just want to give him his dog!" Cole said helplessly, giving up for the moment on placing the child elsewhere.

"He can have it when his punishment is over."

"What kind of punishment?! You don't use corporal punishment here, do you?!"

"Of course not. He'll be in solitary for an hour or so until he calms down."

"He- I told you, he's not a criminal offender like the other kids here are-"

"No one here is allowed to bite, not even the overflows from the foster system."

"Well...well, then, just...where's his stuff? I'll put the dog with his stuff, he can have it when he gets out..."

As soon as Cole left the building, he called the contact number he'd been given for Bruce Wayne.

"You have reached Wayne Manor. How many I help you?"

"Is this-? Uh, is this the butler?"

"Yes, sir. With whom am I speaking?"

"Well, this is Cole Sullivan, the social worker; I was trying to get hold of Bruce Wayne. If he's still interested in what's going on with Peter, at least."

The butler's voice sharpened. "You have news of Master Peter?"

"Yeah, see, they told me they had a placement for him, but it's-" He abruptly remembered the confidentiality policies. "Uhhh, sorry, I think I can only tell Mr. Wayne himself, or, no, actually, just the prime being. Just, do you guys want all the Joker kids, or just Jack?"

"We fully intend to bring all three of our children back home as soon as possible."

"Oh, good," Cole said, relieved. "Well, I guess I'll see you when you've got everything worked out, then. Thanks, Mr.-!" He didn't know the butler's name. "Uh, sir." He hung up and then drove to his next stop of the day, which was John's group home.

Apparently the kid had been disturbing the other children to the point where at least one of them was in danger of deteriorating mental health, so John was being switched with a child from another Wayne Foundation group home. Cole knocked on the door warily, wondering if this one would be a frightened wreck like Jack or a frightened thunderstorm like Peter. As it turned out, the oldest boy was just a complete blank, and Cole wondered how this unresponsive doll could have caused multiple panic attacks in his housemates.

"Hi, John," Cole said gently, kneeling beside the child. "My name is Cole, I'm here to take you to another home. You think you can walk for me?" There was absolutely no response. "Is he asleep?" Cole asked one of the nearby staff members in confusion.

"He checks out. He's usually either wreaking havoc or dissociating, there's not much middle ground."

"Oh, geez. I wonder why he's like that?"

The woman raised her eyebrow at him, then reached for John and gently raised his chin. "See this?" she said, indicating his scarred neck. "What's that look like to you?"

Cole squinted.

"Look." She lifted the boy's arm, fingertips hovering over the scars at his wrist and the other marks that disappeared up into his sleeve. "His entire body is like that. His back is covered with whip scars. What do you think it does to a child, to suffer like that on top of whatever Joker crap he was drugged up on? He needs more help than we can give him. This boy might need more help than anyone can give him."

"Help like...therapy? Or something?"

"He refuses to interact in any way with the psychologist, and he reacts very badly to any kind of drug - he can tell, even when we try to hide it in his food. He won't even eat any food at all, whether it's got drugs in it or not. Honestly, we don't know what to do with this kid."

Cole stared, unable to think of anything to say.

"The only thing I can think of is reuniting him with his brothers, the other Joker children - he keeps making bird noises when he looks out the window, like he's calling them. Do you know if they've found a home for all three yet, or even just two of them?"

"It's crazy, everyone's been on the phone about it all day, but they keep causing trouble at the only homes that will take them. I want to give them all back to Wayne, even the Waynes want them back, but there's...paperwork? That says they can't? I don't know what happened, but they said they're getting their lawyers to work on it, so I'm hoping they'll get whatever it is cleared up soon."

"I hope so, too." The woman leaned down to kiss John's hair. "I'm sorry it didn't work out, Johnny. Maybe we'll see you again someday."

The boy was a robot until Cole tried to put him in the car, then suddenly he came to life like an enraged tiger cub. He screamed and clawed and fought, and one of the group home staff had to help him get the kid into a restraint. "Owww, John!" Cole winced, unable to touch the blood running down his skin but feeling the sting of the scratches on his neck. "You gotta calm down, little guy!"

He lost count of how many minutes the boy raged. Then all of a sudden he went limp and started laughing, laughing and laughing like Joker's victims did, even though there was no way he could have been Jokerized when they'd been watching him the whole time. "Holy cow, John, can you stop? That's really creepy." He didn't stop. Cole managed to get a hand on the boy's face and look directly into his eyes. "John, please stop laughing."

He did. He stared intently into Cole's eyes, then glared and made bird noises.

"Yeah, that's better. You can make the warbley noise, okay?" He'd much, much rather listen to bird noises than that laughter.

"[caw]! [warble]!"

"That's right. Good." It took both adults to wrestle John into his seatbelt, and then Cole rewarded the boy with a candy, which he promptly hurled away. "Holy cow, John, you could hurt someone doing that! That candy was for you, buddy. It was for you."

"crow!"

"You want another one?" Cole gave him another candy.

John stared at him, then, still looking at him, threw the second treat as well.

"Man, don't waste my candy..." Cole looked through the luggage to see if there was a toy he could give John. He found a stuffed elephant, and offered it. John stared at it without making any move to take it. Cole finally put it in the boy's lap, then went around to get into the driver's seat.

Once they were on their way with the phone in hands-free mode, Cole called the group home he was heading to. "Hi, Stacey! It's Cole Sullivan. Just letting you know that I'm on my way with John."

"On your-? Is that the boy we were supposed to switch Andrew with?"

"Yep, that's the one."

"Didn't Marianne tell you?! We can't take anyone new today! We got a group of five siblings at four in the morning, that's four kids over capacity even with losing Andrew, we told Marianne to delay the transfer!"

Cole was dismayed. "Wait, what? Like, I have John in the car right now. We're driving to your place."

"I mean, hopefully we can get the Marlow kids placed out soon, then we can take John, but you're going to have to find someone else for him for the next day or two. Marianne didn't tell you?!"

"I haven't heard from her at all... Well, look, then what am I supposed to do with John? I can't take him back, they're over capacity, too."

"I...I don't know, Cole... Maybe if we got five more of our kids transferred, but that's- I mean, we can't do that to them. Andrew wasn't fitting in well here, but everyone else has been pretty happy for the most part, we can't send out five of them, especially if the Marlows are leaving again soon...!"

"Hmm. Let me make some phone calls; I'll call you back." Cole pulled into a nearby parking lot and then looked up a phone list. He called each number, and was soon surprised by how many homes turned him down the minute they learned who his charge was. He was starting to wonder if he should just drive John to Wayne Manor when he finally got a hit with the third-to-last home on the list.

"Sure, we can take him."

Cole blinked. "Really?!"

"I mean, we get a budget raise like normal, right? No weird circumstances with this kid?"

"I mean, he's a Joker bird kid, but on our end, no, no weird circumstances."

"Sure, bring him over."

"Oh, awesome. Thank you so much, man, I was starting to worry!" He called Stacey back to tell her not to worry, too. Feeling happier himself, he carefully pulled back into traffic. "Did you hear that, John? Someone wants you!" There was no response. Glancing in the mirror showed him a chunk of green-and-black hair and a bit of pale forehead, but he couldn't see the boy's face, and then someone honked as they whizzed by. Cole yelped and concentrated on his driving after that.

To be continued...