The Birds Who Smile, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Alternate route: Never Adopted - Part 7 (rough draft)
What had started out as a temporary arrangement stretched out to weeks, then months. Selina added Ivy's lab to her circuit of homes, and visited at least once a week even if she didn't spend the night. Harley went from treating the lab as a home base to more of an actual home. Ivy started to realize that children, even half-grown ones, needed more attention and supervision than plants did, and found that the time spent away from her work - feeding, refereeing, talking, and the like - wasn't as unpleasant as expected.
They got a lot of visitors, all of them dressing and talking like they were just family friends and not being paid with Wayne money behind the scenes. Phillip had long conversations with each boy, some of them ending in tears or anger, others in breakthroughs and relief, all supplementing Harley's own informal therapy sessions. Jane, so bubbly and energetic, always brought lots of games and books. John started to hide whenever she arrived because her activities tended to make his brain hurt, but Peter and Jackson came to eagerly look forward to her visits. Tina with the enthusiastic hands almost never spoke with her mouth at all, and all three boys soaked up her signing lessons like sponges. And then there were the regular visits to Dr. Thompkins, the exams and the prescribed medication that the birds only trusted when they were administered with Ivy's hand.
Their faces weren't so pale anymore, their ears not quite so pointed. Jackson cried the day he looked in a mirror and realized he wasn't Smiling even a tiny bit. Months later, Peter noticed his own reflection and shrieked with joy, mouth spread in a way that was now entirely natural and not stiff at all. John showed no reaction even when he finally noticed that he looked a little less like the Laughing Bat's bird than he did before.
There were other visitors, too, ones who were certainly not being paid with Wayne money. The first time Penguin showed up, Jackson clung tight to his brothers and waited to be ripped away from them.
Ivy stood in front of her little ones and gave Penguin a look like thunder, plants breaking through the floor and threatening to pull down the ceiling. Penguin backed away and never returned.
There were men and women who would admire Selina's pretty things with her, then take them away after leaving even prettier things in exchange.
There was a strange-smelling man in a green robe who came to talk to Ivy for a while. He didn't look at the boys until the end, when he saw Jackson and paused as he was walking toward the door. He held Jackson's chin to inspect his face; Jackson bit him. The man raised his hand to strike, and this time Peter bit him before he could. Then Selina was there, sliding her body between Ra's al Ghul and her boys, talking so sweetly, and then he left. They all, even the gardens, moved to another home that night.
There were groups of motley people, sometimes with animals. They would flock in and eat a lot and talk even more, sometimes until Ivy got angry and kicked them out. Harley would usually go with them. She'd come back in a few days, maybe a week, and kiss her boys and tell them they'd been good.
Once, she took Peter with her. John cried and went catatonic and threw tantrums the entire night he was gone; Jackson covered his ears with headphones and curled up in a corner with his laptop. Their relief was palpable when their flockmate finally came galloping back, but he was so excited telling them about his adventures ("Laugh Mama gave me a loud thing gg'unn, FUN I like it~!") that they got annoyed with him for enjoying his time away from them.
"I love [chirp-chirp] and [warble] more than gg'unn," [caw] crooned ingratiatingly.
"Mad at you," [warble] pouted in response.
[chirp-chirp] said nothing, but lay right on top of his flockmate that night in a "You belong to me stay HERE" announcement. [caw] accepted it quietly, but that didn't stop him from romping off with Harley on her next adventure.
Jackson, meanwhile, had found his life's work. He spent long hours in his corner, eyes intent on the screen of his computer and fingers often flying across the keys. The more he learned, the more he found there was to learn. Selina was a little surprised when her youngest sort-of son started coming to her with sources or information related to particular pieces she was trying to track down, or people who could facilitate the restoration of stolen national treasures. Harley's expeditions started running more smoothly the more she relied on Jackson's intel, particularly when the boy got fed up with her risky improvising and started providing her with detailed plans and contingencies.
"Batman," Oracle noted at one point. There was a grunt of acknowledgment. "You remember that amateur hacker from a few years ago, dragonbird? He's back."
"And?" Batman prompted impatiently. dragonbird had been creative but unskilled, easily shut down by Oracle and then vanishing entirely.
"And he doesn't suck anymore. It took me ten minutes just to figure out what he'd done to that Trojan so I could neutralize it."
"...Have you traced him?"
"According this, dragonbird is working from Brucie Wayne's work computer."
"What."
"Obviously he's using that as a cover, but we're the only people who would have had the access to do that. Side-note, guess who tagged along with Ivy - Pamela, sorry - when she came in last week to give her presentation?"
Of course Bruce had known whenever any of his children, including the self-exiled birds, set foot on his property. He just hadn't realized that Jackson had somehow gotten access to his work computer.
...Tim had had it with him at the presentation. Checking the security video on the Batcomputer that night confirmed that Tim had been showing his unusually friendly younger self something on that computer after the meeting, and had turned away for a minute to respond to something a coworker had asked him. Jackson hadn't even looked away from the screen, just moved his hand from his pocket to the computer and then, ten seconds later, back again, just before Tim returned his attention to the bird. 'Son of a...'
After that, Bruce, Barbara, and Tim kept a close eye on dragonbird, intervening only when necessary. Jackson had learned a lot during his hiatus. The Bats could still shut him down easily, but the boy's potential as a programmer and hacker was breathtaking.
Bruce, hesitant but curious and proud, eventually gave in to the temptation to pay his youngest bird's way through an advanced coding class that taught much more than the free online courses he'd been using before. "Bruce, seriously?" Barbara said in exasperation a few months later when dragonbird's work became more disruptive.
"...It was, admittedly, impressive," Bruce mumbled.
Tim, working on a different computer to undo the damage, rolled his eyes. "I can't decide whether to keep being mad at you or take that as a compliment."
o.o.o.o.o
[chirp-chirp] was angry. Nobody loved him or wanted him. Cat Mama was gone, [warble] said whenever she wasn't home it meant she was in Bat's bed. [chirp-chirp] didn't know why [warble] was always so angry about that, because it was brave and good and sad for Cat Mama to go be Bat's toy so little birds didn't have to.
Cat Mama was good for leaving, but everyone else was not. Laugh Mama and the Laughing Dogs had gone because she was bored and didn't like to stay stay stay in the home-nest, and [caw] was the same, he kept going with her. He was with her now. Plant Mama was playing with her Greens that she loved more than birds, the MUST kind of playing where she stayed up all night and didn't eat and didn't sleep because she wanted to Finish. [warble] was the same, except it was with his 'laptop' instead of Greens. Both of them said "Leave me alone" when he went to them, and pushed him away when he didn't.
So [chirp-chirp] was all all all ALONE except for the cats, and cats were soft and warm and good but they didn't always want to love or play with [chirp-chirp], and it was quiet and boring and no one loved him and he was angry.
So he went to go be Alone for real instead of alone in his home, because being alone with flockmates nearby hurt worse. He went in the dark and the noise and the bad smells, but it was pretty, too, bright lights lights lights and colors in the darkness. Sometimes music.
"Hello, handsome."
Pretty ladies. They smelled bad with the smoke but they were covered all over with sparkles and colors and very good things like that. The one with puffy soft feathers all around her neck and hanging down her body like tails let him play with them soft good pretty for a while.
Then they all went stiff and afraid. "~~, kid," one of them hissed. He heard a car slowing instead of whooshing past, but then they were all pushing him away, and when he wouldn't go, one of them yanked hard and hurt his wing, pushing him deep into the dark. "STAY," she ordered. Then she pranced back out into the color light again.
He watched, and now he knew why they chased little birds away, because bats had come. Not Him-Bat or Them-Bats, but still bats, looking out of the car and crooning sounds that said "Come with us (entice/hard/dark)."
The ladies twittered back, "(Fake)happy coy (fake)love-you (scared)," then two of them climbed into the car and it drove away. The ones who were left drifted down the street again, relieved and angry and disappointed all at the same time.
[chirp-chirp] didn't understand, it all scared him a little, so he went away.
People on the street tried to hunt him, so he climbed up on the roofs, where it was quieter and safer. He watched the lights for a long time, then he realized he was cold. He went to another roof, and another, and he found a blanket, but when he tried to pick it up, it moved and was warm and grumbled at him. There was a person under it already.
So [chirp-chirp] went to the next roof, and then he heard a dog crying. He looked down. Down down in the dark, a man was hitting a dog. [chirp-chirp] pushed the thing next to him, it was heavy and full of dirt like Plant Mama's gardens, but there was no plant. The heavy thing finally fell. It hit the ground and burst, and the man yelled at [chirp-chirp].
BANG!
[chirp-chirp] covered his ears, they hurt because it was so LOUD. A gun, like [caw]'s new toy that he liked?
BANG!
Then a black-and-blue thing swooped, a Bat. [chirp-chirp] was supposed to run away from Bats, but this was not Him-Bat. It was so beautiful that [chirp-chirp] wanted to keep looking, so he did. Blue wings in the dark, a body that fought like dancing. Then quiet, and quiet, and quiet. Two eyes, spots of white in the black.
After a long time, "Johnny."
"It is good to run away from Bats," [chirp-chirp] said, but still he didn't run.
whooosh
Not-wings in the dark, black-and-blue not-shadow flying up to the roof, not close. Then watching again, the bird and the Bat. Nigh'wing. The one [warble] said loved Batman and gave himself to Bat on purpose, but even if he did that far away in that bad dark house and cave, he wasn't doing it now. He was looking like [chirp-chirp] was very interesting and important to be kept safe.
"...What ~~ you doing ~~ here ~~ alone, Johnny?"
"Blue Bat is alone? Master follow?"
Quiet, and quiet.
Blue Bat got bored, he flipped his body the other way, walked on his hands.
...[chirp-chirp] used to do that. A long, long, long time ago.
...Not [chirp-chirp]. Little dead boy Dickie Robin, he did that, when he wasn't [chirp-chirp] yet.
Dick was dead but he was still inside [chirp-chirp], he could walk on his hands so maybe [chirp-chirp] still could, too. He went down, hands and head down, feet up.
Too much; his feet went too far, he fell. But he felt now where he was supposed to balance, and he tried again, and then he felt Blue Bat's hands - light, light, just a nudge at his legs to say, "Right here, that's good, no farther."
He fell again when he tried to walk. This time when he dropped down to his hands, Blue Bat's hands on his legs said, "Not so far this time, I'll help; walk half first, then straight still, then walk full."
There. There it was, [chirp-chirp] was walking on his hands and it felt so good he laughed, and fell again. Blue Bat was laughing, too.
Arms came around him and suddenly [chirp-chirp] was scared, not of Blue Bat but because he was alone with no flockmates to tell him if there was danger or not. He pushed the arms away and ran.
o.o.o.o.o
Nightwing tailed his younger self, keeping out of sight, watching John explore the city and quietly intervening whenever anyone started to move threateningly toward the boy.
John was attracted to lights and certain kinds of music. He sat for half an hour at the feet of a man with multi-braided hair playing guitar for tips. (Nightwing dropped a bill into the man's hat once John finally moved on.) He spent twenty minutes admiring a blinking neon sign in a store window. He danced to cheer up a little girl who was crying outside a grocery store (Nightwing called the police when he discovered that the child's mother had deliberately abandoned her).
At last, Catwoman's frantic voice broke through the comms, and Nightwing reassured everyone that their missing little bird was safe. He watched until John had made it safely home, then returned to a normal patrol, wishing he knew why his younger self had freaked out about the hug. 'I won't let anyone hurt you, Johnny.'
TBC