Chapter Text
If anyone knew what he’s doing right now, they wouldn’t be happy. Dick just got the cast off, received a whole bunch of instructions to take it easy, and instead he’s perched in a tree inside the Blockbuster Resort and Casino.
He used the downtime to write up his report on the Blood Cliffs—there was enough preliminary data to validate the need for a more comprehensive exam on the Blood Cliffs under the Sentience Conservation Act. Unfortunately, he also heard through the grapevine that the push wasn’t going to get very far in Bludhaven’s notoriously corrupt bureaucracy. What sparked his interest, however, was the mention of a familiar name in connection to the case—Roland Desmond, crime boss and owner of the Blockbuster Resort and Casino.
Investigate coincidences, he can hear Bruce’s voice in his head, and often there’s a pattern.
Why would Desmond block the relabeling? Unless there’s something that further investigation of the Blood Cliffs would turn up that would directly impact him.
Barbara, upon hearing his theory, told him to stop being an amateur detective and focus on his research. Amy, a detective with the BPD that Dick met after intervening in a mugging, told him that if he creates another paperwork disaster for her, she’ll arrest him herself. Bruce was distracted when Dick called—his new grad student is apparently prone to testing things out via explosions—but definitely agreed with Dick that it seems suspicious.
All three told Dick to be careful.
Dick is being careful. He’s dressed in dark clothes, he waited until dusk, and he used his knowledge of carnival entrances to sidle through a staff door and into an inconspicuous location to wait for dark. He can admit that this is not what any of them meant by be careful, but Dick has historically never been able to let things lie and he isn’t going to start now.
He shifts slightly in position and waits as the night grows darker and darker and a few lights switch on the distance. No one comes to Bludhaven in the off-season and several parts of the resort are closed, leaving the place nice and dark for Dick to do some poking around.
Dick has just decided to climb down when bobbing flashlights halt him. Staying in place, hidden by the foliage, Dick watches a couple of night guards approach, clearly doing a practiced patrol.
“—get away from the aquarium,” one of them says, walking along the path. “Kind of creepy, to be honest.”
“Yeah, boss didn’t like that there was a mer pod in the waters.” Dick freezes. The mers. Did they have something to do with this too? “I agree with you, all that hissing is off-putting.”
“Now that we have one of ‘em, we can catch the rest soon.” Dick’s blood slowly changes to ice as the guards continue on their way. “They’ll make a pretty attraction for a few days, up the revenue a little bit.” They aren’t talking about—they can’t be talking about—“And then boss’ll sell ‘em to the scalers. They’ll fetch a good price, all those matching scales.”
Dick waits until the guards pass out of hearing range before he lowers himself from the tree. His fingers are shaking.
They didn’t.
There’s no way—not even Desmond would dare—mers are sapient creatures.
He didn’t put one of them on display like a zoo animal. He didn’t.
Dick’s willing to believe a lot of awful stuff about the man, but this is a step too far. Whatever’s going on—and there’s definitely something going on, Dick’s beginning to have suspicions about the private beach and all those random dead bodies—Desmond hasn’t actually captured a mer and put them in the aquarium.
He gets all the way into the empty building, surrounded by dimly lit tanks, before he’s forced to accept it’s even worse.
It’s a merling, the size of a human child, the same orange-and-black scales and silvery hair of its father, but this one Dick doesn’t recognize. They pause in the middle of a hissing frenzy when they catch sight of Dick, and then proceed to keep trilling, high and sharp.
A child.
Dick balls his hands into fists as slow-burning fury ignites in his gut. “Shh,” he whispers, as though they can hear him through the glass. “I’ll get you out of there.”
The merling continues hissing as Dick backs out of the large viewing room, searching for a back door. He finally finds a staff entrance that leads to stairs to the platforms above the tanks, and these are empty too, lit eerily by emergency lighting and making him feel like a character in a horror movie.
He checks the other tanks as he darts past, making sure Desmond isn’t hiding any other sapient creatures in his aquarium, before he finally reaches the right one. “Hey,” he says, dropping to his knees on the catwalk and peering in. The merling’s hidden itself in a corner, watching him warily. “I’m here to get you out.”
The merling hisses.
Dick curses inside his head and darts a look around to make sure he’s truly alone. “It’s okay,” Dick says as soothingly as he can. “I’m here to help. I’ve met your pod-mates before. I can get you back to the ocean.” No dice. “I—they may have mentioned me? One of your pod-mates helped me when I got stuck in some rocks.”
That finally gets the merling to move, though they stay well out of reach as they slowly surface. “The human that can’t swim,” they lisp, moving their mouth carefully as they sound out the human words.
Dick winces but decides to pick his battles. “That’s me,” he smiles, “My name is Dick.”
“Rose,” the merling answers.
“Hi, Rose,” Dick says gently. “That’s a pretty name.” She narrows her eyes at him. “I can help you get out.” Rose makes a low, automatic hiss. “Your pod-mates saved me twice,” Dick tries, “I want to repay the favor.”
The merling does not look convinced.
Dick takes a deep breath, mentally bracing himself, and slowly dips a hand into the water, palm out.
Rose drifts a little closer, more curiosity than suspicion now, until she’s close enough to stretch out and touch. Dick doesn’t move, waiting and trying to suppress his fidgeting. Another quick glance around the catwalks—nothing.
Rose rocks closer, and closer, and—latches onto his hand, teeth bared. Dick immediately flinches, waiting for razor-sharp teeth to bite down…and feels nothing.
“You will take me to Dad,” Rose pronounces, imperial despite her small stature, and Dick smiles as he extends another hand into the water.
“I promise.”
Carrying a baby mer is not an easy task. Rose keeps squirming, displeased with the feeling of air on her scales, and mer scales feel a lot like silk, slippery even when dry. Holding her like a human child doesn’t work very well because she doesn’t have hips like a human does, but they worked out some sort of middle ground where Dick hugs her tightly to his chest and she clings to his neck and wraps her tail around him.
Dick still has to frequently stop to adjust his grip, so they aren’t making great progress. “Do you know where we’re going?” Rose says—not whispers, she doesn’t have any concept of an indoor voice. “Are you lost? Should I call—”
“Shh,” Dick hisses, cutting her off. He’s sticking to patches of shadows and making his way in the direction of the private beach. The first step is to get Rose in the ocean, everything else comes after. “I know where I’m going. Keep your voice down, we don’t want to alert anyone.”
If Dick knew he’d be rescuing a mer tonight, he would’ve come more equipped.
The beach is on the other side of the resort, through a more populated area. Dick wishes he has something to hide Rose’s tail so he can pretend she’s a human child, but he settles for picking up the pace.
He just caught sight of the starry night sky through the tree line when a shout erupts behind him. “The mer! He’s got the mer!” Dick turns enough to see one of the guards pointing at him, and then he spins back around and runs.
Rose slips in his grasp but he just tightens his grip, ignoring her gasp as he sprints for the trees, his heart pounding wildly in his ears. He abandons the path to run up the grassy hill, ducking his head as they crash through the trees.
“Stop! Stop, or we’ll shoot!”
“They’re getting closer!” Rose shrieks into his ear.
Dick can’t go any faster. His breaths are getting jagged and his heart is racing. He fixes his gaze on the dark waters glimmering in the moonlight, sand giving way underneath his shoes, and keeps running.
The ocean is twenty feet away.
“They’re getting away!”
Fifteen.
“Stop!”
Ten—
Rose makes a high-pitched scream and squirms madly in his arms, “Harpoon!”
Dick turns to look, which is his mistake.
The guards do have a harpoon. They also have guns, out and pointed at him, and they take his moment of hesitation to fire.
Pain slices across his thigh, swift and burning, and Dick crumples on his next step, crashing hard to the ground. He yanks Rose’s arms off as he does, uncaring of the scrapes her claws make, and flings her out on the sand. A foot away from the sea.
“Go!” Dick shouts, pushing the merling away from him. “Just—go!” She’s looking at him, eyes wide, and Dick curses, shoving her forward that last inch as a wave surges across the sand.
She finally starts wriggling away, splashing in the few inches of water as the wave recedes. Dick can hear the guards approaching and tries to stagger upright again. He collapses immediately, pain radiating down his leg, and looks down—the side of his pants gleams a dark red in the moonlight.
“Stay down,” an angry snarl reaches him and Dick looks up into the barrel of a gun. There are four guards surrounding him, all with guns out. The one with the harpoon keeps his run to the water line.
Rose has vanished from view and Dick stares at the man and the harpoon, his heart caught in his throat. Please, he begs inside his head, one hand clamped to his burning wound, please, don’t let them find her.
Something answers his prayer. The man lowers the harpoon with a curse and turns back to Dick. “Take him to the boss,” the man growls, malevolent. “And let him know that the mer’s escaped.”
Dick leans against the railing as the boat sways under his feet, trying to stay upright. The ocean glitters darkly all around him, near-black under the moonlight, but none of it is as dark as the expression on the man in front of him.
Roland Desmond is a big man. Sharply dressed, with the kind of cold eyes that remind Dick of unforgiving drops. And he is very, very angry.
Dick twists his wrists in the tie that held them behind his back, and stares coolly back. Half his face is throbbing from Desmond’s punch, but the pain is inconsequential. The crime boss hasn’t brought him to the middle of the ocean just to punch him in the face.
“You’ve made a grave mistake,” Desmond says, voice sharp and cutting.
Dick’s exhausted and bleeding and in no small amount of pain, but Rose is free. That isn’t a mistake.
“I am not the kind of man you cross,” Desmond says, slow and vicious. “And yet you trespassed and stole my property. Do you know what I do to those who go against me?”
Judging by the guards and their guns, Dick has a pretty good guess.
“You had a child in a cage,” Dick retorts, keeping his voice steady by sheer force of will. “Fuck you.”
“Mers aren’t people,” Desmond retorts, gesturing to one of his guards. The man yanks Dick away from the railing, towards the back of the boat, and Dick just barely bites down on the scream as his wounded leg is jostled.
The ocean gleams behind him, but Dick can’t swim with his hands tied. Much less in the cold autumn temperatures and in the dark, this far from shore.
“Yes, they are,” Dick grinds out, minute shivers wracking his frame as another guard kneels and begins—tying something to his feet? “And they’re a whole hell of a lot better than you.”
Bricks. They’re tying bricks to his feet—
“If that’s where your sympathies lie, so be it,” Desmond says, looming in front of him as Dick’s exhausted mind puts the pieces together, too slow and too fast. “You can join them.”
The man places a large hand on Dick’s chest, and pushes.
For a second, Dick’s weightless. Stuck somewhere between shock and terror, darkness all around him, staring at Desmond’s grim expression. And then he hits the water.
It’s cold. It’s dark. It steals the breath from his lungs in a shocked gasp—mistake, he knows better, he should’ve inhaled—as he plunges into the depths, faster than he’s ever done before. The bricks fight against his natural buoyancy, pulling him downwards even as he begins to struggle, arms twisting against his binds, feet kicking out against the weights.
He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe, his lungs are tight, his chest is being squeezed by iron bands. His leg burns, saltwater blistering in the wound, agony so acute it steals away his thoughts.
It’s dark.
He can’t see anything.
He can’t move, no matter how hard he fights, how hard he struggles, how hard he writhes desperately against his binds.
It’s so dark.
He’s going to die.
The thought is terrifying. Tears slip out of his eyes, saltwater mingling with saltwater, chest heaving for breath he doesn’t have, his lungs eking out every worthless second of oxygen in an attempt to delay what Dick knows is inevitable. He can’t free himself from this. He’s going to die.
Dick will never get to finish his research. Never get that professorship he wants. Never see Bruce again, or meet his new grad sibling, or say goodbye to Barbara, or clamber up a trapeze.
This is the end.
He can’t bring himself to stop holding his breath. It won’t hold out forever, he can feel his thoughts slowing, getting muddier, but panic keeps his lungs arrested, panic and denial.
At least—if he has to die—he’ll die saving someone else’s life.
Dick closes his eyes—purely symbolic, he can’t see anything either way—and quietly prays to the gods he knew as a child, to give him peace and guide him on the way—
Something tightens on his arms, iron grip forcing him still as the bricks pull at his ankles. Dick—doesn’t understand what’s happening, he tries to twist but he still can’t see, he—there’s something pressing against his mouth, forcing it open and—it’s another mouth, Dick can feel someone else’s tongue, and he struggles fiercely but there’s no escape. He’s panicking now, brain fuzzy but terrified, hyperventilating—
Wait.
Dick pauses in the middle of a too-fast, too-shallow gulp.
He’s…breathing?
There’s air forced into his mouth in a steady rhythm, a hand tangled his hair keeping him in place. He can feel claws resting against his skin. A mer. Dick still can’t see anything, no matter how hard he strains, a combination of the dim moonlight and the depths to which he’s sunk, but his heartrate gradually settles as he continues to draw in breath.
There’s a trill behind him and Dick flinches as claws settle on his hands. The binds around his wrists tighten before abruptly releasing, and the ones around his feet do the same, the tension and the weight gone. Dick cautiously settles his hands on the mer in front of him, fingers skimming across smooth scales as the mouth on his slowly closes.
They jerk underneath his grip, a roiling motion as the grip tightens. Dick can feel himself being propelled upwards and it’s a small eternity before he breaks the surface with a heavy gasp, desperately sucking in fresh air as he’s held up by a strong grip.
The face in front of his is familiar, silver hair glistening in his blurry vision, and Dick doesn’t have time to register any more details before a shriek splits the air.
“Dick!” a high voice cries out, and Dick swivels in the direction of the noise right as a tiny cannonball barrels into him. Dick manages to get his arms up to pat Rose’s back as the merling clings to him like a barnacle. “Dad and Grant and Joey were looking for you, and they couldn’t find you, and I was so worried,” she rattles out, voice muffled against his shoulder, “and you smell like blood.”
Oh, right, the bleeding wound. Dick’s gradually aware that he’s shivering, in the middle of open ocean more than a mile from shore in the middle of the night. “Got shot,” he rasps, voice hoarse and cracking. He feels like someone stuck him in a blender and spun on high—exhausted and dizzy and drained. “Thank you for saving me.”
“You saved my kid,” the adult mer says, voice low and deep, and his scowl isn’t as frightening this time. He raises a clawed hand—Dick doesn’t have the energy to flinch—and gently traces the outline of the massive bruise on Dick’s face. “Humans did this?”
Dick nods weakly. “Roland Desmond,” he says, wincing as a wave hit his chin. The mer tightens his grip on Dick’s waist and hefts him a little further out of the water. The other two merlings watch them silently. “He—he owns Blockbuster Resort and Casino.” Gods, Dick is so tired. He wants to sleep right here, freezing water and bleeding wound be damned. “He has a lot of influence in the city.”
If Desmond realizes he’s failed, he’ll come after Dick again. Dick has to go to a hospital, he needs treatment, but he doesn’t know which ones are safe. Or which half of the BPD isn’t corrupt. And he’s so very tired. He has to fight to open his eyes after a blink.
“Dick?” Rose says, but her voice is oddly distant. “Dick?” comes again, though this time the voice is deeper. The sounds are becoming fainter and fainter.
Dick doesn’t remember closing his eyes.
Slade stares up at the stars, floating on his back. The human is curled up on top of him, fast asleep—he didn’t even twitch as Grant clumsily bound his bleeding leg, or when Rose clambered on Slade’s tail in an effort to join him. Slade can feel soft breaths huffing against his scales as the human slumbers, apparently exhausted.
He can sleep. He’s safe here. Slade can sense anyone coming and Grant and Joey are out patrolling. The bloodstone is also humming in the background, a near silent buzz that tingles against his scales. It’s old magic, and it doesn’t take kindly to thieves.
Slade closes his eyes and remembers how terrified he was when he realized Rose was missing. When Grant said that she was talking about exploring the sand beach away from the city. When Slade got there to find nothing, when all his increasingly frantic calls went unheeded, when he scoured every inch of the ocean in mounting desperation—
When he heard her again, near the beach, crying and trembling and stuttering over herself as she told a story of being captured and locked into a tank and being saved by a human.
“You spend a lot of time in the water for someone who can’t swim,” Slade murmurs to the sleeping human. It was sheer luck that Slade was close enough to spot the boat, that he didn’t immediately take his pod and flee and instead saw the human being tossed into the ocean. That he tasted the blood in the water and recognized it.
That he got there before the human finished drowning.
This isn’t a long-term solution. The human doesn’t have gills, and can’t stay with their pod, no matter how many times Rose asks. Sure, Slade knows of some magical workarounds for that, but humans belong on land. The only reason Slade hasn’t deposited him back there is because he isn’t sure where is safe.
Roland Desmond. Slade won’t forget the name. His pod might be small, but Slade has a lot of friends and favors in the wild ocean. And it’ll only take one or two of the worst monsters to destroy the city and everyone in it.
Slade glances down again at the sleeping human, salt-stiff locks curling, darkening bruise against tan skin, faintly furrowed face. Well. Maybe not everyone.
:Dad!: Slade’s musings are interrupted by Grant swimming towards them, fast. He breaks the surface and immediately starts babbling, “There’s a boat and it’s coming right towards us and I heard them mention Dick!”
Slade goes cold. “Where?” he demands, moving his tail to dislodge Rose, who wakes with a grumpy start. “How many people?”
“There’s three people on the boat,” Grant says, pointing in the direction of shore. Now that Slade’s looking, he can see the shape moving towards them, lights distinct from the neon city behind it.
:Tracking through magic: Joey chirps, and the chill deepens. That isn’t something Slade can shake off their tail.
Slade twists until he’s vertical again, catching Dick before he falls off. Dick wakes up when he hits the cold water, movements still lethargic, “What—” and Slade cuts him off with a palm over his mouth, the noise of the boat getting closer.
If he drops down—but Dick can’t breathe underwater—but Slade can breathe for him—but what if the humans have other tricks up their sleeve, Slade can’t leave his pod unprotected—
They’re shouting something through a horn and it gets clearer the closer they get. “Dick! Dick! Dick, where are you?” the voice echoes across the water.
Dick taps on Slade’s arm and Slade lets go. “My friends,” he says hoarsely. “Can you get me closer?”
Slade scowls automatically, but he can’t deny the relief as he tugs Dick closer to the approaching boat. The calls keep repeating as Slade pulls Dick alongside the boat, keeping him out of its reach as he scans it.
Three people, as Grant said, one manning the tiller, one with the horn, one pacing worriedly.
“What if the spell isn’t working correctly?” the dark-haired one says, voice dipping low. “What if he’s already—”
“The tracking spell shows he’s alive and near here, so we just need to keep searching,” the red-haired one says sharply. “Richard John Grayson, where are you?”
“Babs,” Dick rasps weakly, and then louder as Slade grudgingly pulls him closer, “Barbara!”
The people on the boat, and the lights, swing their way. Slade glares against the beam, irritated. The humans freeze and stare.
Slade has to support Dick all the way to the edge of the boat. The human is an abysmal swimmer. “Babs,” Dick repeats, weakly curling his fingers on the deck, “Amy. What are you guys doing here?”
That finally gets the humans to unfreeze. “What are we doing here?” the dark-haired one repeats. “What are you doing here, Grayson?” Their gaze sweeps over Slade. “And who’s your…friend?”
Slade makes sure to stretch out his jaw to bare his teeth. The humans seem threatened. Good.
“I—Desmond—it’s a long story,” Dick says finally, stretching up his hands. “Help me up.”
Slade lets go when the other humans grab on, and they pull Dick onto the boat. One of them immediately brings Dick a blanket and wraps it around his trembling form. It isn’t that cold.
“Thank you for saving me,” Dick croaks out, peering over the edge of the boat to look at Slade.
“You saved Rose,” Slade says tersely. “We’re even.” The ocean doesn’t like debts. “And the next time you decide to jump into the ocean, learn how to swim.”
“I do know how to swim!” Dick says, offended, but Slade is already swimming away. One human delivered into the hands of his own, check. One human still out there breathing air instead of screaming under Slade’s claws, check.
He’s going to deal with that. No one hurts his pod and lives. Ever.
“If I see you doing anything other than writing grant proposals for the next six months, Grayson, I swear I’ll chain you to your lab.”
“That’s unfair! I got shot at and nearly drowned. Isn’t that punishment enough?”
“Has that actually taught you a lesson?”
“…Be more prepared when I go trespassing on property belonging to a crime boss?”
“Ugh. And here I used to think Wayne was bad. How did you survive your PhD again?”
“I’ll have you know that was only a minor hospital stay and the police caught those cult members so—”