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“Where are we going?” Jason picked at the skin around his nails, ignoring the sting as he looked out the window.
Grey trees blurred past the car, lit only by the moon and their headlights. Every now and then, a sign would fly by advertising unfamiliar products from an unfamiliar city. They were alone on the road, like a metal car in a sea of bare pavement. Jason hadn't seen another car since they’d left the interstate.
“You’ll see,” Bruce told him, just like he’d told Jason every other time he’d asked in the hours since Bruce had picked him up form school. Jason could faintly see the light smile tugging at one corner of Bruce’s lips in the rearview mirror.
“Where are we going, Daddy?” Jason looked up from his action figures to his dad’s looming figure in the doorway.
Jason didn’t want to play or “train” with his dad. He wanted to go back to his room to hide, maybe cry—he really wanted to cry, but Willis wouldn’t let him anymore. Willis wouldn’t let him move, either. He’d told Jason to sit down and play with his action figures while Willis was out.
Willis walked slowly into the room. Jason didn’t like that at all. Daddy didn’t walk, he stomped and kicked and stumbled when he was drunk. When Jason finally made himself look up, there was something cold and cruel in Willis’s eyes.
“Get up, brat,” Willis purred. “I found someone to buy you.”
Bruce wouldn’t hurt him. Bruce said he wouldn’t, he said he didn’t want to rape Jason, he’d said it while Jason had his coat and told him not to lie.
He hadn't told Jason he wouldn’t sell him, though.
Jason pulled his knees to his chest and buried his face against his jeans. Bruce wouldn’t. Bruce was good, he was. Bruce was Batman, and he said he wanted to be Jason’s dad, but not like Willis had been his dad. Bruce—
Bruce said he loved Jason.
But Willis said he loved Mama, and Willis was horrible to her.
What could be so important that Bruce would leave being Batman for the night? And why did he need Jason? In the six months since he’d bought Jason, Bruce had never taken the night off, except when he was really badly hurt and…
And the night he’d bought Jason.
Jason dug his teeth into his bottom lip as hard as he could. He was being silly. Bruce didn’t need money like Willis had. Besides, Bruce was too good to sell Jason, even if he was mad that Jason had dropped a pile of plates yesterday. Bruce said he wasn’t mad, but he probably really was, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t want Jason anymore.
Jason didn’t ask again.
They drove forever after that—or it felt like forever, but Jason could see on the clock that it was only thirty-seven more minutes. Every second made his heart beat faster and the world seem slower. He wanted to get it all over with, he wanted to keep driving forever. He didn’t even know what was worse.
Sometime right before they stopped, Jason started crying. He cried very quietly so Bruce wouldn’t get annoyed and snatch his coat away to make him stop, but he couldn’t make himself not cry. He’d been so stupid when he trusted Bruce. He’d thought he’d never have to feel this scared again.
Close to eight, Bruce pulled off the road and onto a driveway. Jason took a deep breath and pulled his coat tighter around himself. Bruce wouldn’t hurt him. He wouldn’t. But Jason couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that even though Bruce hadn't taken Jason’s coat, Jason was only barely ten, and Bruce was so much bigger than him. It wouldn’t even take magic for Bruce to make him do what he was told.
Bruce didn’t say a word to Jason as he drove down the long driveway, but Jason could see that he was smiling. Bruce smiling had only ever meant good things before, though, so it was okay, right? Bruce had had Dick for years, and he hadn't sold off him.
But Dick wasn’t stupid, and he was small, and even when he had been small, he’d been so useful as Robin, but Bruce didn’t even want Jason to be a vigilante. Dick wasn’t a whiny, stupid, clumsy, disobedient kid like Jason. Bruce had probably decided weeks ago that he was gonna sell Jason off to whoever wanted him. That was why he’d forgiven Jason for the plates. Because it didn’t even matter anymore. Maybe he’d even known from the very start that he was just gonna sell Jason for more money than he’d bought him for, and that was why he didn’t want to train Jason to fight. He didn’t want bruises.
The car finally slowed to a stop, and Bruce hummed a cheery little tune to himself as he parked. Jason’s stomach lurched, but he forced himself to look up.
The moon and stars were bright, brighter than they ever were in Gotham, and Jason could see the vague details of a small house surrounded by trees. Was his new owner in there?
“We’re here, buddy,” Bruce said, turning to Jason with a happy smile.
Jason swallowed hard, staring at the dark shadows on Bruce’s face as his smile fell.
For a moment, the air was still, and then Bruce reached one giant hand out toward Jason.
Jason flinched back, but he could only get so far away with his seatbelt on, and even if he could get away, he wouldn’t get far before Bruce could catch him and drag him back. It was all hopeless—
Bruce switched on the light on the ceiling between them.
“Jason?” Bruce whispered.
Bruce looked and sounded crushed, but Jason couldn’t think of why. He was about to make…more than ten thousand dollars if he was selling Jason at any profit. “Jason, what are you scared of?”
Jason dug his fingers into the cuffs of his coat and hugged it tight around him. He’d thought he was safe, he wanted to be safe, but he couldn't be, because he was a selkie, even if Bruce was a selkie too.
“Wh—where are we?” Jason pleaded one last time.
If possible, Bruce’s heartbroken expression fell more. “Jason…where do you think we are?”
Jason whimpered and swiped his cheeks with his sleeve desperately. Dad hates crying. “You—you’re gonna sell me.”
There was someone in the house, someone who was going to force Jason to do all the things he thought he’d been saved from when Bruce bought him, and Bruce was going to hand him over to that person because Bruce never really loves Jason at all.
Jason’s breath hitched on a sob as he buried his face in his hands. “Please don’t sell me! I’ll be good! I’ll be really good, so don’t sell me! You—you—please—”
“Jason, what are you talking about? Sweetheart, I’m not going to sell you to anyone,” Bruce promised, but it wasn’t true, it was just what Bruce knew what Jason wanted to hear so he’d behave and do whatever Bruce wanted.
Jason shook his head desperately. “N—no, please, I can—I’ll—”
But he couldn’t. There was nothing he could do for Bruce that would make him valuable except sex, and he’d rather go into the house to whoever Bruce had decided to sell him to than do that with the closest thing to a real dad he’d ever had. It was already bad enough that Bruce was going to sell him, but he couldn’t—he couldn’t do that with Bruce.
Bruce must have gotten fed up with Jason’s whining, because he quickly unbuckled and got out of the car. It barely registered through Jason’s misery that Bruce wasn’t just leaving, that he was coming to get Jason, and even though he knew running was useless, he couldn’t just sit there and let Bruce tear his coat off him. He had to—he had to do something.
His fingers fumbled at his buckle, but he couldn’t find the button. He could see Bruce walking around the car, closing in, and he was running out of time.
Jason found and pressed the button at the same instant Bruce reached the door.
Jason threw off his seatbelt and lurched across the backseat as the car door opened, but Bruce’s hand grabbed his ankle before he could open the door and escape.
Jason collapsed against the other door with a sob and wrapped his fingers around the handle as tightly as he could to keep Bruce from dragging him out of the car. He wanted to go back to school that afternoon and keep himself from getting in the car at all. He wanted to go back to yesterday and catch those plates. He wanted to go home and watch a movie with Dick and help Alfred in the kitchen—
Had Dick and Alfred known Bruce was gonna sell Jason the entire time? Maybe Dick hadn't known, but Alfred knew everything, so he must have known, which meant all the being nice and all the kindness was all fake the entire time.
Bruce let go of Jason’s leg, but he didn’t go away. The car shifted slightly under his weight as Bruce climbed in the backseat with Jason and closed the door behind him.
Jason curled his knees up to his chest to protect his coat as the tears streamed down his face. He should have known better than to be happy. Not even other selkies could be trusted.
Bruce rested a hand on Jason’s shoulder, practically swallowing Jason’s shoulder whole. Jason shrieked and flinched away, and Bruce snatched his hand back.
“Jason,” Bruce rumbled in that big deep voice of his that used to make Jason feel so safe. “Jay, I’m not going to sell you. I would never sell you.”
Jason sobbed harder, gasping for breath. “S—st—stop lying—”
Bruce sighed. “This was meant to be a surprise for you, Jay. A happy surprise. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Then where are we?” Jason screamed, raising his face to look at Bruce.
Bruce stared back at Jason, his eyes heavy with sadness. “Sweetheart. We’re at the ocean.”
Jason froze. The—the ocean?
His mama had grown up in the ocean till his da—till Willis stole her coat and made her marry him, but Jason had never been anywhere except ponds or lakes or bathtubs. She’d told him all about the way the currents would carry her, and the way the waves would just crash against the shore, and how the kelp forests made for the best hide and seek, and how her family would sleep all together on the beach to hide from predators in the water.
“Just beyond those trees, baby. It’s too late in the year for most other people to be on the beach, so there’s no one to recognize us or see us shift. Dick and Alfred are coming tomorrow morning after patrol, but we wanted to give you as long as possible in the water.” Bruce ran his hand down his face the way he did when he was very tired. “Jason, I would never sell a child, human or selkie, and I would never hurt you. I promised to keep you safe, Jay. You’re my son.”
My son. Jason frantically searched Bruce’s deep blue eyes for even a speck of dishonesty, but Bruce met his gaze levelly and honestly, like he really…like he really meant it. Like he really wasn’t going to sell Jason, like he loved Jason so much that he was going to keep him and keep being nice even though Jason wasn’t as good as Dick and couldn’t even try to be helpful without shattering an entire stack of plates.
But what if Bruce was lying, what if he did want to sell Jason, and his “dad” who loved him and wanted to protect him was all an act, just like Brucie Wayne? What if there really was someone, or lots of someones, in that house, just waiting to do whatever they wanted to Jason?
If…If Bruce was lying, then he wouldn’t have brought Jason to the ocean, not when Jason still had his coat. Jason couldn’t keep running from Bruce on land, but if he didn’t have to get far, then he could probably at least get past those trees and down the beach before Bruce could catch him, especially because it was so dark. In the water, Jason could swim away, and even if Bruce followed him, he’d have to be in human form to carry Jason back to shore, and Jason was a slippery baby seal. He could get away, and Bruce would know that.
That meant that if Bruce was telling the truth, then the ocean would be so close.
Jason bit his lip hard as he tried to make up his mind. Finally, he took a deep breath and wobbled, “I—I’m gonna get out now.”
Bruce’s shoulders slumped in relief, and Jason swiped at his eyes and told himself that Bruce being relieved didn’t mean he was happy he was going to get to sell Jason now.
When Bruce opened his arms to carry Jason or help him out, Jason shook his head and pressed back against the door he was leaning on—the door he couldn’t go out of because he’d have to go all the way around the car to get to the beach, and Bruce could hide behind the car and jump out to grab him if he did that and Bruce would be between Jason and the beach if Jason tried to run.
Bruce looked even sadder somehow, but he put his arms down and climbed out of the car. Jason waited and glared until Bruce stepped away from the door and started walking in the direction of the “ocean.”
Jason took another deep breath, just in case he had to run, and told his hands to stop shaking so much. He needed to be brave. He half-scowled at himself and scrubbed his cheeks with the heels of his hands. He needed to be braver.
Still, Jason’s stomach was tying itself all up in knots as he dangled his food to reach the ground below the car. Bruce couldn’t see his insides, though, so it was okay.
Bruce stayed where he was about ten feet away while Jason got his feet under him, but Jason kept an eye on him anyway. After a few moments of wary glaring, Jason finally turned toward where the ocean supposedly was. If Bruce was telling the truth, then…
“…and the waves, baby…” his mama trailed off with a pained whimper and winced hard. The hand combing through his hair tightened, then pulled back as Mama realized she was hurting him.
Jason shot up from her side and reached over her to grab the washcloth from the bowl on the nightstand. Most the ice cubes were melted, but the water was still cold enough. Jason squeezed it just a tiny bit, then pulled back the wet hand towel over her collar.
The burns were still nasty and bubbling, and Jason hated seeing them there, scared forever into Mama’s skin all because Daddy wanted to hurt her. At least Daddy had been too drunk last night to tell them not to make it better like he had last time.
Jason laid the washcloth over his mama’s burns and threw the towel into the bowl to get wet and cold. He wanted to cry, but Mama wasn’t even crying, just almost crying, so Jason couldn’t cry for her.
Mama’s breathing slowed down after another minute or two, and she opened her eyes again. She shuddered and blinked, then reached blindly for Jason. Jason didn’t wanna lie down on her shoulder, because then it would hurt her again when the wound got too dry, but Mama grabbed his wrist and tugged weakly. He couldn’t make her hurt herself by having to ask twice, so he lay down and nestled against her side again.
“What about the waves, Mama?” Jason prompted. Talking about her life before relaxed her when she was hurt, but it always made her extra sad later. It was worth it to keep her mind off the pain, though.
“The waves, crashing on the shore, like the roar of a thousand thunderstorms…there’s nothing like it, baby.”
Mama drifted into a light sleep a little bit after that, but Jason never forgot what she’d said.
Jason could hear the waves. Even as far away as he was, he could hear the ocean churning and writhing and crashing into the beach. It was right there.
And that meant that Bruce was telling the truth.
That meant everything Bruce said was true. He loved Jason. He wanted to protect Jason. He wasn’t going to hurt Jason or sell him to anyone, and Jason had called him a liar and screamed and cried about the nicest present anyone ever gave him.
Jason choked down a sob and turned to Bruce, still standing far away from Jason to make Jason feel safer because he was the best person in the whole world and he wanted to make Jason feel better.
Jason couldn’t even find the words to say sorry to Bruce. If he started talking, he was just gonna cry, and that would make Bruce feel worse, which wasn’t fair, so instead of saying a word, Jason raised his hands in a wordless plea to be picked up.
Bruce responded instantly, the shadowed expression softening, and he swept Jason up into a powerful hug, but he didn’t make it hurt even though Jason had been so awful.
Jason sagged against Bruce and threw his arms around Bruce’s neck, and Bruce hummed in sympathy and ran his fingers through Jason’s hair, just like his mama had a few years ago. It was so much like her, so kind and gentle even though he didn’t deserve it, and Jason burst into tears.
“I—I—” Jason gasped, too breathless for words. “I’m sorry!”
Bruce shook his head and trailed his hand down to rub Jason’s back. “Shh, pup. It was my fault. I should have told you when you asked.”
But Bruce shouldn’t have needed to tell Jason that he wasn’t going to hurt him because Jason knew that Bruce was good. It should have been enough, and now it was, because now he knew for real that Bruce loved him.
“D—d—”
“I won’t, pup. I won’t hurt you.”
Jason sniffed hard, because that wasn’t what he was going to say. He knew now. Bruce wasn’t just the nice guy who bought him, he wasn’t just Jason’s guardian.
“D—dad,” Jason sobbed.
Jason could feel Bruce gasp at the word, and he wondered…was that the first time anyone had called him that? Bruce had had Dick forever, but Dick didn’t call Bruce anything other than his name or B.
Dick had had a real dad, though, so Jason understood why he didn’t want another one. Jason didn’t know how he’d feel about having another mom, but he’d never had a good man to call his dad.
Until now.
Jason soared through the water in a way he never had before. The water was crystal clear in his seal form, and he could see the way Bruce spun with the grace of Batman grappling between buildings. Nothing had ever felt so wonderful, so freeing as this.
Except his dad, of course.
He’d never swum so much before, and he found himself tiring quickly, and not just from the swimming. The ocean wasn’t just big, but there were so many currents, pulling, pushing. Ebb and flow, his mama called it. It was nothing like even the giant swimming pool at Wayne Manor.
Jason let himself slow to a near stop, and Bruce—his dad, and that was going to take some getting used to—glided up next to him.
Bruce must have just known Jason was tired, even though it couldn’t even have been more than an hour or two, and he gently nosed Jason’s ribs, nudging him toward the shore.
Jason didn’t want to go, but he understood. It was getting late, and he was up way past his bedtime.
Jason swam obediently, if slowly, to shore, soaking up as much of the wonder and freedom of the ocean as he could in the last few minutes. Bruce contentedly drifted beside him and shifted back to human once the water got down to a few feet. He walked beside Jason till Jason’s body started to brush the sand, then lifted him up and cradled him like he was a baby.
They would be back tomorrow, though. Bruce had said Alfred and Dick were coming in the morning, and Jason could barely wait for it. He had a real family now, and they were going to make the ocean even better.
Jason yawned and felt Bruce’s chuckle resonate through his whole body. It was Bruce’s fault, though. He shouldn’t have let Jason be up so late. Still, Bruce felt so safe and warm, and Jason was so tired, so he closed his eyes and let the sway of Bruce’s arms carry him off to sleep to dreams of the waves and ocean.