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Dick screamed, raking his claws across the net holding him back from his parent’s sinking bodies. Screaming and screaming until his voice was hoarse and painful and all he could do was quietly cry into the salty water. The net pulled and he was taken away farther, thrashing and crying, and soon drying as he was hoisted above the sea. He bared his teeth at the hands, snapping and growling, and responding to the men’s funny words with snarls.
They were laughing, clapping their hands and pointing like young pups. He shuddered, the sun made his skin feel taught and dry and it hurt . It was burning him, these people were burning him alive for their enjoyment, and they liked it when he started screaming again.
There were more men and more hands and more passing around and he was shoved into a small container. He brushed his hands against the sea glass-like material, curling up when he saw his reflection. His face was drawn and there was a bruise from where one of the men had hit him after being bitten. Dick felt tears bubble up to the surface as he started to cry again. He felt like a baby.
They tapped on the glass, cooing and making infantilizing noises before rocking the cage back and forth. More people came, but they weren’t the sailing men. They were small and wide-eyed. Human pups.
Dick had played with a few small humans before, before his parents had… Just before. Before, they would travel and they would twirl and spin and would stay in other mer pod’s territories for a short time. To provide entertainment, to enjoy another’s company, and to live . His kind were a nomadic people, they didn’t stay in one place long, and they enjoyed following the sea’s pull to wherever. But now? Dick was forced into one cramped, small, unfeeling, lonely place. The sea was right beneath him, swaying the boat, but he couldn’t escape the small glass cage.
He started learning their language, he wanted to know why he was here, and he wanted to throw their own words in their faces. A carnival, a large traveling carnival, and all on a boat. His parents told him about carnivals, about where they came from, their pod told stories about everything. They also said carnivals were where mers go to die, not just on the outside but on the inside as well. In water, but never really swimming.
He was an attraction, something for humans to point at, to tap at, to jeer and sneer and to terrify. And… it was working. Dick retreated into himself, daydreaming more than he was actually aware of his surroundings, or of the humans outside of his glass coffin. His past determination to claw and slash and maul his captors soon fizzled out as he floated in the water, day after day after day.
He knew that he was growing, his tail grew longer– for more agile turns, and his once muddy browns were slowly turning to the older pup colors of his past pod. Red, green, and yellow… but his fins and his growth was also stunted by the cage. His adolescent fins should be broader, more open for communication rather than small and angular for tight spaces. His tail should be at least five feet, but was condensed into little more than four. Dick felt infinitely small and he felt so, so tired.
They dumped him into the ocean, the ship began to sink, falling deeper and deeper as the men scrambled for smaller boats. They let him start to sink as well. It was a fitting end for him, Dick mused.
Trapped inside his home, inside his home, inside his coffin.
There was a gruff trill and Dick’s head snapped up. He had forgotten much of the Mer dialect from his mother pod, but he could respond to general pod communication. Dick whined and whined and whined as the large mer came forward. He couldn’t see their tail or their face or anything but a shadow of their figure. They hummed low and deep and Dick was reminded of his father.
His father’s bright blue tail with dark stripes along the sides and his mother’s opposite. Dick didn’t know when he started crying and he didn’t know when the mer took him out of his coffin. Didn’t know when this mer clutched him to their shoulder and gave a stuttering rumbling purr of comfort, but Dick did know that he was finally free of death’s grip.
The pup couldn’t swim well or speak well. Bruce watched from the sidelines as Alfred began consoling the small boy, having taken him since from Bruce’s own arms. The small teen had been trapped inside a small glass enclosure and pushed from the ship that they’d capsized earlier. It smelled of a pup’s fear and of resignation. No child should ever be that ready for death to take them. Bruce’s fins fanned in anger, slowly stalking off to go hunt, but mostly to calm himself before returning.
He hadn’t expected a carnival in Gotham’s deeper waters. Bruce had heard the whoops and yells and the different languages being thrown around in the air. He also, heard the mention of a young mer, and then he’d gotten Alfred involved. They both quickly sunk the ship, worried about the mention of a pup, but watched from the sidelines as the men and women quickly ran about. They jumped into smaller boats and began paddling away, nervously looking this way and that. He was going to follow them later, either they’d leave his territory alive before he had found them, or their blood would stain the water as a warning.
The pup’s name was Dick. Alfred had actually gotten through to the boy and managed to give him a few basics in their Gotham dialect, but the boy’s twisted human-like accent and poor Mer was a sorry sound. Bruce had listened carefully whenever Dick spoke, most words being lost between them, as he would switch between a careful sentence starting in Mer but ending in some human language from the ship.
“Am I… bad? What is the word?” Dick faltered behind him, doing his best to keep up, but his tail muscles were practically jelly due to months in a small cage. “Annoying? I don’t… talk good or swim good.”
Bruce glanced back, his blank semi-scowl on his face as a careful attempt to keep his emotions in check. This boy was abused for months, for years? They had no idea, but humans left this pup to slowly die inside a glass cage of stagnant water. “No. You swim fine and your speech is improving. Alfred likes you… and I enjoy your company.” He did, really. Dick was affectionate and constantly wanted contact after being without it for so long, but Bruce wasn’t good with sharing his feelings towards others and that left Dick to initiate attention himself.
Dick was small for his age, his adolescent colors were slowly coming in as his scales shed, and they were bright. They were supposed to be. The kid needed to be easily seen by his pod and it told certain predators to keep away. It also however, made him an easy target for hunters, but Bruce made sure his territory was clear. He always had, even with other pods came into his territory, asking for a home or shelter.
Bruce complied, he enjoyed seeing the other mers bring life into his home, and in turn for this he protected them. He was a large mer by most classifications and had an intimidating figure. Dick admitted to being scared of him when he first met Bruce, but warmed up because he was a “softie.”
“Why do you ask, Dick?” Bruce tilted his head to the side, keeping his fins relaxed so the boy wouldn’t tense.
“Mers were telling me that I talk too much for somebody who is bad at it,” Dick mumbled, adding a few extra words in a language Bruce still hadn’t become fluent in. “I wanted to know if you thought so too?”
“Of course not.” Bruce slowed to a stop and let Dick brush up against him, but the boy proceeded to wrap his arms around his waist. Pulling him into a tight hug, Bruce sighed into Dick's hair with a small smile. “You’re part of my pod, aren’t you? I would never get rid of you.”
There was a wobbly “Thank you,” before Bruce simply held the boy and swam towards the cave they called home.
Dick knew that Bruce patrolled his territory often at night, but he didn’t expect to get invited to do so… but he obviously needed some help. It was a big territory! So, maybe Dick snuck out to help patrol the waters they lived in. It was for good reason.
Challenging mers were getting more common because of the growing population of those under Bruce’s protection, but there was a few who just kept coming back. They were driven off constantly, as they kept harrassing and attempting to maim or murder the pods that lived within the Gotham territory.
Dick heard B telling Alfred about another dead pup and he knew that he was going to have to help patrol the territory. His teen colors had come in! It was practically his job to learn and to help out the adults of the pod, plus he was finally strong enough to do spins and flips and the tricks he knew by heart from when he was younger.
He tailed Bruce, able to keep quiet with his smaller fins and more streamlined body. At least that nice traumatic experience with that carnival made it easy for him to do his tricks. His father was rather small for an adult male mer though and his mother was built for quick turns and quicker fights. It made sense that Dick had both those those attributes, only further exaggerated by his messed up fins.
That being said, now he was keeping up with Bruce easily! Alfred and Bruce said he was constantly in movement, who could blame him! He spent months in a small cage and Dick wasn’t planning on stopping this force of nature anytime soon.
There was a soft sigh, “Dick, I can still sense the vibrations in the water when you move.”
He startled, caught by his adoptive father’s voice. “What? I’m not Dick. I’m Robin, see.” He pointed to the octopus ink he’d covered the bridge of his face with. Bruce’s skin had long been stained by ink, covering the top half of his features, and all it did was further push his creepy aesthetic.
Not many of the pods ever met Bruce and his Gotham pod, but they knew they were protected by something. They named him “The Dark Knight,” as if he was some sort of royal protector. Which when some mers Dick had encountered told him of the nickname, he’d laughed in their faces and eventually started wheezing.
Bruce was awkward and emotionally stunted. He tended to speak in occasional grunts and hums instead of actual Mer. It was a language all on its own and Dick had learnt to speak it ages ago. So when Bruce just responded in a grunt, Dick knew it was a “go back home and stop playing games” grunt.
“I want to help! It’s my territory too, right?” Dick pointed towards himself with a webbed hand. He wasn’t really familiar with how territories worked besides getting into them for a few nights when he’d travel with his parents. They didn’t settle, but now that he was with Bruce, Dick wanted to help out.
“Technically.” Bruce responded, his black tail churning water behind him as they moved forward. “But it isn’t safe for you out here. Not right now.”
“It’s the open ocean. It’s never safe, B!” Dick sighed, doing a roll in the water as Bruce watched with hidden amusement.
“I don’t want you tagging along while I defend the territory.”
“Oh yeah? How are you gonna stop me?” Dick grinned, showing off his growing fangs. “You’ll be busy on one side of the territory and I’ll be on the other!” Hah, perfect plan.
Bruce only seemed to get paler, which was a feat considering his already very pale skin tone compared to Dick’s warm tan. “If you go out to patrol, you have to be by me. I don’t want you getting caught by an adult mer who has a good ten feet of tail on you.” Dick blinked, oh… he hadn’t really thought of that much.
“Sooooo… does that mean I can go on patrol?”
Bruce let out a heavy sigh, “Yes.”
“Dick,” Bruce had his “this is a warning” tone on. “What did I tell you about aggravating the mers outside the territory?”
Dick flipped around, avoiding a narrow slash to the side. “Do it but be careful!”
“That is definitely not what I said.”
“Well, you didn’t tell me not to!”
Bruce sighed, slamming into another mer and sending them rolling away, and leaving bubbles of exhaled air behind. “I told you to stop doing it. That means to not do it.”
“I thought you said to just do it for giggles instead of for practice.”
Dick touched the ship, making intense eye contact with Bruce before grinning. “Hey, look! Look! It’s a ship .”
“I told you to stay away from that. Get away from the ship, Dick.”
“No! You can’t make me. It’s my ship now.”
“It definitely isn’t. Get away from it.”
“No.” Dick put his hands on his hips.
“Yes.”
“No.”
Blood floated in the water and Dick faintly registered that he was sinking… wasn’t he supposed to be floating– swimming? He was made for the water and he was sinking. Oh.
He took a shuddering breath, trying to tilt his fins for a turn, but immediately shrieked in pain. Blood sluggishly filled his vision again as he turned to look around at his back, the movement pulling at his now torn fins, and Dick felt faint. He was still sinking. Is that what those men felt? As the light grew dimmer and as the pressure started to build on their bodies? Why couldn’t he move? Breathing was hard, moving was harder, and everything was dark.
“C’mon Dick, open your eyes.” Oh, he knew that voice. When had he closed his eyes? His eyes fluttered open for a moment before closing again, they were just so heavy. “Just stay awake for me, chum. I got you. Everything is fine.”
Water swayed around them, arms were caged over his torso, and deep, buried panic settled into his bones. He couldn’t be taken from the water again, he couldn’t, it happened once and Dick could not be stuck in some glass coffin again to rot. So he thrashed and it pulled at his wounds, but the pain was already burning enough to fade into the background.
The arms grew tighter and he couldn’t breathe. He was choking on blood, Dick was choking on his own blood, and he couldn't breathe. Voices murmured and were too faint for Dick to catch any words, the blood in his ears was roaring too loudly. The blood was choking him too loudly. Like any sane mer, he passed out from the lack of oxygen and the stress.
Dick was vaguely aware that he was awake, but not very conscious. He let out a low whimper, mostly to call his dad over. He didn’t know when Bruce and dad had become synonymous in his mind, but they were. He’d never be his biological father, but Bruce had raised him and helped teach him to speak and swim again.
Just like Alfred, and Alfred had been just like a grandfather since day one that he’d never thought of the older mer as anything but. There was a returning trill and then a purr, Dick cracked open his eyes, but closed them to hiss at the bright lights.
“Where are we?” His voice cracked and it hurt more than it should to talk.
“I took you to a colleague.” Bruce supplied, his voice like rough coral as usual. “She helped patch you up.”
Dick tried not to think about drowning in his own blood. “What… actually happened?”
“Patrol.”
Teeth and laughter and a foggy remembrance of pain. Dick was glad that it was easy to forget about his throat and shoulder being mangled. “Shit.”
Bruce gave a cut-off laugh. “Where’d you learn that?”
“Hmm, traded with some fishermen a while back. I gave em’ fish directions and they taught me some curses.”
“Of course you did.” Dick opened his eyes again, blinking to let them adjust to the light, and he stared up at his dad’s fond face.
“Love you, dad.” Bruce’s face softened more, his usual awkward demeanor melting into something affectionate and familial.
“Love you too, Dick.” He opened his arms for a hug and Bruce complied, being careful not to jostle any of his injuries. “You’re never allowed to do that again. Never. ”
“I make no promises.”