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moratorya · 27 days ago

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𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃 ━━━━ 𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐢

‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊ in which you're a mermaid of the seas, blessed with a love for swimming with freedom, and jason is a sailor of the seas, blessed with a love for you.

word count: 8.1k

warnings: mentions of sexism, some violence, character death (guys it's jason what do you expect), completely unedited because i wrote this in a fever state

notes: hello !!! first multi-chapter idea (very excited) and there were so many of you who were interested in this idea??? which was so flattering???? anyways i hope i did it justice - i literally wrote this in like,,, a day because i was so inspired and excited. let me know what you think!!!

fic masterlist・next part

“There’s a ship! It’s inbound! There’s a ship!”

It’s your first time. You’re ten, struggling to read the sheet music that’s been assigned as homework, when the giggles come from the older mermaids who waste no time rushing towards the surface.

You give your tutor a weird look, but she’s out of there so fast that you barely catch the end of her tail.

Curious, you put down the music and follow, small tail beating at twice the rate to keep up with the older girls. The good thing is, you were born with a stronger tail than most, and gills that worked half as hard to gain the same amount of oxygen. So you don’t really struggle, keeping the glimmer of your seniors’ scales in your vision as you beat your tail to go upwards.

The closer you get to the surface, the choppier the water gets. You suspect that there’s probably a storm, or the wind is kicking up a fuss, but it barely fazes you as you keep swimming. The coral that clings to your skin groans in protests, the bioluminescent light flickering as it struggles to keep up with the pressure changes and the rush of the water around you. But you need to swim fast, because otherwise you’ll lose sight of the mermaid in front, and that means a trip wasted.

“Oh my,” one of the girls cries as she gets closer enough to identify the ship, “it’s the Bat!”

Everyone stills. You arrive with a huff, barely behind. You had been catching up, even at your age and statute. You frown, looking around, trying to see the identification of the nearby ship.

A harpoon smashes into the water. The glint of the metal seems almost malicious.

A girl screams. Then they all scramble in the opposite direction.

You torpedo straight down, heart thumping. It’s working in overmode, probably hysterically switching to your double circulatory system as if you were above water, but even as the need to surface for oxygen intensifies, you only swim harder.

Being ten, you’ve only ever heard of the Bat through vague gossip. Even then, discussing the matters of vigilante ship the Bat counts as treason, and the risk of getting one’s head beheaded has stopped most of the gossip from circulating. But what you do know, is that the Bat is one of the few human ships that have actually had interactions with your race before. He knew some merfolk on a name basis, you heard.

That’s quite a feat. No self-respecting mer ever gives out their name without trusting the other.

The water is thundering against your ears, but you hear it. A yell.

Even if you don’t sing as well as other girls your age, your sense of hearing is impeccable. You think you’ve mistaken it for an unusually loud howl of wind, but you hear it again.

“Jason!”

You glance up, just out of morbid curiosity. The water is rushing, your heart is thrumming, but for a moment, all you can hear is the crash as a body falls into the water.

The body isn’t that much bigger than you, but you’re not supposed to carry anyone with you lest you break off your coral and lose your source of light. That’s why moving large objects and other live beings are left to those who are of age, who use their glowing tattoos instead to illuminate the way.

You glance fervently around yourself. Humans only last mere minutes underwater.

Everyone is already gone, terrified at the sight of the Bat—there is no one around. When you glance back up, terror climbing up your throat, you know. You need to save this human otherwise he’ll die.

You risk the harpoons, the weapons—death. You risk death, because you’re only ten, and all you’re really thinking is as you get closer, is that the body isn’t as big as you thought it was going to be, and you ignore the pain of the coral ripping off the back of your hands as you shove them under the human’s armpits.

His legs are woefully useless as you drag him through the water, going for the surface. The sound of yelling is even louder as you get closer, and you feel your gills close up as you break the surface.

You gasp for air as soon as it’s available, water running down your face and dripping into your mouth. You spit out all the salty water because it’s dirty and disgusting and who knows what’s in there, and you try to get the human to do the same.

His face is ice-cold to the touch, but you ignore that as you unceremoniously shove your fingers into his mouth. Please don’t bite, you beg, please don’t bite—

He gags, choking, and water spews out of his mouth. Your tail is working so hard to keep both of you afloat amongst all the waves, and the fatigue is getting to you. Someone screams from above, on the boat, and you see the glint of metal, and the aim of a harpoon.

You’re screwed.

“Wait—” the human splutters, reaching for you, “wait—!”

The harpoon locks onto you.

“Let go of him!” the man behind the weapon bellows, his aim unwavering. “Jason! Can you hear me?!”

The human gurgles, and all the energy he had earlier suddenly begins to leak away. The cold must be getting to him.

You don’t have time. So you act, almost subconsciously, and you rip the heatstone off of your chest and tie it haphazardly onto the human’s neck. He startles at the warmth, hissing at the feeling, and your eyes lock.

His eyes are blue, you think. The problem is that your coral barely functions above water, and all you have is lightning to illuminate the world for you, so you only have the quickest of all moments to try and gauge what he looks like.

The flash of white all you get, and you see. His face.

He sees yours too. It’s all within a millisecond.

He sees you, and he reads your expression. He reaches for you, arm outstretched, but you dodge, and you know your time is up.

“Wait, no, don’t—”

You dive. The human on the ship yells again, but your human yells back, and that gives you enough time to swim the hell away from the surface. There’s the unmistakable thunk of a harpoon shooting after you in the water, and you squeeze your eyes, waiting for the pain.

It doesn’t arrive. You keep swimming forwards, even as you expect for the pain to shoot up any moment and for your tail to stop working.

You keep going. It’s almost pitch-black in the water now, no bioluminescent coral to light your way, and you fumble through the currents to try and head down. The warmth that all children should get from their heatstone is gone, and you feel your arms lock up first from the cold, and then your hips aren’t as flexible anymore.

You keep going though. You just keep.

Going.

When you wake up, it’s to Mistress Talia al Ghul staring down at you with her emerald green eyes. You instantly shrink underneath her gaze, but you realise that it’s not the eyes of someone who’s about to sentence you to treason. Instead, she’s almost evaluating you through visual analysis.

“She went to the surface,” one of the Elders hiss, “she should be executed!”

Mistress Talia looks at you. Through you. You feel like those green eyes are seeing something far more than just the hunch of your shoulders and the blue chill of your skin.

She reaches into her pocket, and pulls out a heatstone. It dangles, in the water, the heat pulsing tantalisingly. You almost reach for it, but you remember your place.

Mistress Talia smiles, coldly and arrogantly. With a single swish of her tail, she’s right in your face, and you hold your breath and she leans forwards.

The heatstone lands gently on your sternum as she places it over your head. It’s a much better quality than the one you had gifted the human, and you almost instantly warm up.

“This is a gift,” she says to you, “and you will gift me your loyalty in return.”

“Mistress!” one of the Elders exclaims, scandalised.

“She saved one of the Bat’s sons. He is now indebted to us, and it is thanks to this child.” Mistress Talia turns around to subdue the Elder with a glare, and even you shiver underneath its power. “My father would agree with me.”

“But—!”

“You.” Mistress Talia turns back to you, and you straighten. “You’re a strong swimmer.”

You are technically faster than the rest of the mer your age, but that doesn’t really mean anything when age doesn’t matter in serving your seniors. “Relatively, ma’am,” you correct.

Her smile widens. “You will do well. I will check on you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” you say, because that’s the only thing you can say in that situation.

“You have good judgement in saving the Bat’s son. My father and I will have high expectations for you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Dismissed.”

You don’t know what that means. So you sit there, brows furrowing, when the woman realises that you’ve obviously only ever been educated in the ways of music and nothing else.

Her lip curls up in what you can only describe as terrifying. “Tomorrow, you will report to Moon. Class begins at high tide. Do not disappoint.”

You can only nod. She tilts her head, as if looking through you again, eyes flitting down to the hearthstone on your chest for a split-second before she’s looking away.

“Dismissed. That means you leave.”

You nod again, this time more fervently. Then you leave.

The thing about humans is, they are curious.

They’re the ones who initiated contact in the first place, concocting suits that can withstand the high pressures of lower waters, with fins attached to their feet to swim faster and stronger. Myth goes that the original relationship between humans and mer was tentative, but amiable, and they spent a few decades exchanging information and technology. Your coral was used to create magnificent artworks—or so they claim—and for medicine, and their above-water rocks were the precursors to the heatstones you have now.

Then the relationship soured, but you can kind of understand how the friendship first arose because your human is unbearably endearing.

“Uhm,” the human says, awkwardly, waving at you from where he stands on the shore, “thanks, er, for meeting me. Here.”

You stare up at him, still in the water. Only your eyes are above.

“So,” he continues, barreling on despite the lack of response, “I’d, er, appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to. Uhm. Anyone. You might run into like, Dick or something. B doesn’t know I’m here—he’d absolutely blow it if he found out that I contacted Talia first. So. Yeah.”

You bat your tail a little harder, and more of your face rises out from the water. The human brightens at the motion. “Hi!” he cheers.

“Hi,” you say, tentatively.

“Thanks for meeting me here,” he repeats, and shuffles a little closer, dropping into a crouch, “I just wanted to return this.”

He holds out your heatstone, perfectly polished as if new, thrumming with heat as if it didn’t battle the icy waves of a storm. When you push your shoulders out of the water to reach for it, his expression falters when he notices the new one you have on your chest.

“Right,” he murmurs, as you take the stone out of his palm, “you have another one.”

You inspect your old one, the warmth flooding into your fingertips. He must’ve taken care of it well; it’s been weeks since the storm, but it still has its heat which needs to be replenished using a soft source of heat like a vent. You know humans have fire, but that would do nothing but damage it. Still, he’s managed to find a way to keep it alive and in good condition too.

“You’re the son of the Bat,” you say aloud, flipping the stone in your hand.

“Jason,” he corrects. “Jason Todd.”

When you look up, his big blue eyes are round and imploring. For some reason, the way he looks at you warms you more than the stone on your sternum. You’re always told that humans view your kind as exotic, never really regarding you as intelligent beings with the same mental capacity as them. But the way Jason Todd looks at you—well, you feel like suddenly he’s waiting for you to tell him what to do.

“Hand,” you order. He holds it out almost immediately.

Very gently, you place the heatstone back into his palm, your fingers brushing against his skin. Now, no longer in the water, his touch is warmer than yours, and he shivers at the chill of your fingertips as you close his fingers around the stone.

“A gift,” you assert. “A thank you.”

“I should be thanking you,” Jason protests, but doesn’t pull away, “you saved my life.”

“You saved my life,” you say pointedly, and then reach further. He freezes, blue eyes wide, and you touch his shoulder. His tunic covers it up, but you’ve always been good at detecting even the most miniscule movements with your lateral line.

He reaches up, almost reverently, to touch his own shoulder. The edge of his tunic shifts, and you see the bandages underneath, stark red blotting the white. He rubs it subconsciously, peering curiously at you as he asks, “How did you know?”

“I heard a harpoon,” you explain, “but I didn’t lose my tail. And,” you add, with a flicker of a smile, “you favour your left side.”

Something amused dances across his face. It suits him. “You’re quite the detective,” he says, and then laughs, as if there’s an inside joke that you’re not privy to. “I just didn’t want B to shoot you. He gets a bit tense when one of us falls in.”

“His sons?” That’s understandable. Last you heard, the Nightwing—the ship belonging to the Bat’s eldest son—had almost gotten shipwrecked after chasing a rowdy pirate crew. You think you’d be pretty stressed if your kids were running around, hot on the trails of an illegal crew.

“Well.” Jason tenses. “Sure.”

You raise an eyebrow. He beams back at you, completely erasing the earlier tension, and he gently covers your hands with his. It’s a tentative movement, giving you time to withdraw, but you let him hold your hands, curious to see what he’s going to do.

Entertain him, Mistress Talia had ordered. Keep him happy.

“Anyways,” he says brightly, demeanour completely changed, “I just wanted to say hi. And thank you.”

“And introduce yourself,” you say with a smile.

“And introduce myself,” he agrees. “It’s my first time talking to a mer, you know that?”

You tilt your head. “Your brother?”

“Dick? I see him like,” Jason shrugs, “once a year, if not. He’s too busy being angsty and chasing down Deathstroke or whatever. But sure, I stand corrected—this is the longest conversation I’ve ever had with a mer.”

“This is the longest conversation I’ve ever had with a human,” you offer, just to make him feel better.

He grins. “Cool. So we’re like, human-mer besties.”

“Besties,” you echo, because you’re still not up to that in your human slang education. Master Moon is more about dissecting human carcasses and analysing their anatomy, so your knowledge of human culture mainly comes from mythology and folk stories.

Jason hesitates. “Look, anyways. It was great to talk to you. Good to place a face to my mysterious saviour, right?”

“Yes,” you nod, “thank you.”’

“Uhm!” Jason grips you a little tighter, as if afraid you’re going to slip away. “Are you, er, free any time this week?”

Time flows different for you than humans. Your kind follows the tide, the pressure altering and the waves changing, whereas the humans follow the sun. The rise and the fall, the change in light. Your week, your day, even your hour looks different to theirs.

“I can make low tide in two days,” you tell him.

He tilts his head to the side as he thinks, nodding to himself. “Okay, great. Great, I can make that. Can we meet here?”

You nod. “Yes.”

“Can I…get your name?”

He looks so sweet, face round, eyes wide, and expression so excited to start this new relationship. You can help but smile, a laugh bubbling out, and you nod.

You tell him your name. He repeats it, as if it’s the name of a deity.

“It’s nice to officially meet you,” he says, grinning, and then he shakes your hand like a true human does. “See you on Thursday.”

“Thurs-day,” you try to repeat, but it only makes his laugh at your attempt at the foreign word.

“Thursday,” he corrects.

You pinch your face together as you try again. “Thursday.”

“Yeah, like that. Hey, not bad!” He smiles at you, and you realise.

Maybe not all humans are that bad.

Jason and you get into the habit of meeting habitually, although the intervals vary so much that you can’t really call it “regular”. He says it’s because he’s travelling with his father on the Bat, claiming that they’re just merchants who travel across the sea, but everyone knows its because they’re chasing pirates left, right, and centre. You once asked why vigilante ships weren’t arrested, when they were technically acting as pirates themselves, and Jason had just shrugged.

“Maybe they’re too fast,” he suggests, grinning.

You had rolled your eyes, flicking water into his face with your tail.

At some point in your meetings, it had turned from entertain him to let’s hang out, and even Mistress Talia frowned when you said you were visiting Jason again. Still, she valued keeping a relationship with the Bat, and so begrudgingly let you swim upwards—you were careful to tell Jason not to meet up more than once a week. He had been disgruntled, mainly because the two of you mainly met in bursts and had longer periods away from one another, but he never pressed.

That’s the thing about Jason. He respects your boundaries, perhaps far too much. He never tests anything, always waiting for you to give him a sign of sorts, like the first time he inspected your coral.

“I remember them breaking off,” he murmured, eyeing them carefully, “did it hurt?”

It did. But you reply, “No.”

Jason’s always been quite sensitive to you and your pain. Initially, you had thought it was because he felt indebted to you, but you’ve come to realise that it’s because he’s just a bleeding heart on the inside. As gruff as he likes to be, waving things off like his shoulder injury or when you disturb his sleep cycles to meet up, he never shies away from being indignant about others’ grievances.

So he gives you a look when you reply, a tight frown as if he knows you’re lying, and instead tries to soothe the phantom pains with warm fingers of his own.

Each time you meet, you get pulled out of the water a little more. Each time you meet, he gets pulled into the water a little more. It’s a funny thing, the way Jason pulls up his pants to sits on the edge of the pond, and the way you pull yourself up to sit beside him. Your iridescent tail shimmers besides his pale legs, and sometimes you bat at him playfully.

He never kicks you in retaliation, but he does roll his eyes and shoves your shoulders. Never hard enough for you to fall over, but the few times when you wobbled, still unused to lack of resistance in the air, he’d gently grab you to stabilise you.

His touch was always warm. You liked that about him.

“So,” Jason says, one day, “I heard that mermaids sing.”

You can’t help but make a face.

“Oh, so no? I heard you guys sound super nice though.”

“We train and practice,” you agree, “but I’m not very good at it.”

Jason nudges your shoulder with his. It’s healed from the harpoon wound, but you know that there must be a scar. You’ve just never asked to see it, and Jason’s always kept his shirt firmly on, even as he sometimes swims besides you. “I doubt that,” he protests, “you’re good at like, everything.”

“I can’t sing,” you mumble, lifting your tail out of the water to pat the surface. The smacking sounds fill the small cavern. “I’m much better at swimming.”

“Oh yeah, shit, B was telling me—you could keep up with the ship and everything. That’s impressive.”

You grin, proud. “Yeah?”

Jason smiles at you, something soft in his expression. “Yeah. B says he hasn’t seen a mer so young keep up before.”

“Yeah,” you nod, satisfied, “good.”

Jason reaches out, and you automatically thread your hand into his. He traces the scars of where your coral was ripped out of your skin very carefully, before circling around your new coral that glows green, the colour of royalty. You remember the tense argument Mistress Talia had raged through with the Elders, who were convinced a child like you didn’t deserve the symbols of a higher class when you obviously didn’t have the blood. No one, though, wins in an argument against Mistress Talia.

“So what do you do if you’re not that good at singing?” Jason asks, before raising a finger. “Not that I believe that—you probably sound like a fuckin’ angel or something and you’re just being humble.”

You think of your Head of Music, her wince every time you had to sing alone, and you just give Jason a look. “I sit in class, and learn from Master Moon. Then I hang around, I guess.”

“Do you get to swim?”

Sometimes, though, Jason has moments of insight that have your insides clamming up. Sometimes he looks at you as if he knows you’re only trying to please him because Mistress Talia said to, or maybe as if he knows you’re trying to prod more stories about the Bat because information about the Bat is scarce underwater.

“Yes,” you say, finally.

“But not as much as you’d like to,” Jason deduces. “What, they think girls can’t swim?”

“Biologically, we aren’t as strong or as fast,” you shrug, “and those who train in swimming shape up for combat. I doubt I’ll ever be combat-orientated.”

“Combat-orientated. Huh. But what does that have to do with being able to swim?”

“I swim,” you object. “I swim a lot.”

Jason gives you a flat look. “When are you free next?”

“Next…Wednesday? It’s in eight days.”

“Hey, you’re getting good at the days,” he praises, grinning. He pats your hand comfortingly. “Yeah, it’ll be next Wednesday. Look, we’ll be on the move, but I think I can convince B to swing ‘round. What if you swim with me?”

You look pointedly at his legs beside your tail. “You can keep up?” you reply, dryly.

“Oh,” Jason’s grin widens, “you’re gonna love swimming beside me.”

“Yeah?”

He nods definitively. “Yeah.”

“I’m looking forwards to it,” you say, genuinely, and you pat his hand back. He beams at you, and you almost attempt to shield your eyes from the bright light known as Jason Todd.

“Time’s up,” a voice calls, and both of you stiffen. You pull your hand away, and Jason sets his expression into a terse frown as he leans back, palms digging into the rocky ground. One of your seniors, another loyal subject of Mistress Talia, surfaces, and his sharp, golden eyes flit between the two of you. “Sun-chaser,” he adds, tightly.

“Henchman,” Jason snipes. Every time he clocks a threat, typically the senior who comes to escort you back, his tone because sharp and his eyes narrow into thin slits.

“Jason,” you admonish, “be nice.”

He shrugs, but the corner of his lips is pinched. You reach out, pressing your fingertips to the edge of his mouth, trying to ease the tension. His eyes blows wide, face immediately going slack, and you smile at him once the tense lines are gone.

“It’s bad for your face,” you scold.

“Yeah,” he replies, distantly. “Sure. Whatever you say.”

“Sun-chaser,” your senior repeats, this time firmer.

You sigh, taking off the shawl that Jason always brings you, and slip back into the water. You minimise the splash so you don’t get the clothing wet, and you wave cheerily at Jason as you drop beneath the surface. He lifts a hand, waving back, small red dots on the palm from how he was leaning on it against the rocks.

“Don’t get too attached,” your senior warns you, leading you to the exit.

You don’t reply. You decide to focus on counting down to Wednesday instead.

Bruce Wayne, the captain of the Bat, is, you decide, one of the most terrifying men ever to exist.

You can kind of see why he and Mistress Talia have…such a relationship. They're both terrifying in their own ways, and together, they'd most definitely be unstoppable.

“Call me Bruce,” he says, shaking your hand firmly, “it’s nice to meet Jason’s favourite person.”

“Favourite mer,” you correct, before you can tell yourself to shut up.

Bruce Wayne’s eyes twinkle with amusement. “You’d be surprised. Anyways, he’s just preparing for drag surfing. There’s good wind today, you’re in luck.”

You tilt your head, curious. Bruce Wayne currently stands in a small ship, nothing like the massive Bat, with a golden word etched on its side. Robin. You’re pretty sure it’s a type of bird, so you’re not quite sure how it’s suppose to translate into sailing, but you know better than to question Bruce Wayne himself.

Compared to the Bat, which bobs just behind, the Robin is tiny. Absolutely miniscule. If anything, it looks as if it can handle no more than five people onboard, whilst you’re pretty sure you could live on the Bat and get lost in its many decks.

“So, just let me say,” Bruce Wayne starts, “I want to apologise for shooting at you the other night. It was dark, and in my experience, foreign merfolk grabbing my sons hasn’t turned out all that great. But Jason tells me lots of good things about you, and it only makes the guilt build further; please, let me give you my sincerest—”

“B! Holy fuck, shut up, please?”

“Jason!” you exclaim, looking up to where his voice had come from. He waves from where he stands on the Bat, ignoring Bruce Wayne's muttered ‘language’.

You brighten at the sight of a familiar face, only for your face to morph into horror as Jason jumps from the top deck of the Bat, aiming straight for the Robin.

Before he can face-plant and possibly kill himself on impact, he latches onto the rope that keeps the Robin attached to the Bat, flipping acrobatically to land easily on his feet. “Jay,” Bruce Wayne says, suddenly very tired, “please do not jump without being attached to a harness.”

“I’m fine,” Jason waves, before crouching down to grin at where your chin rests against the edge of the boat. “Hey there, bubbles. You excited?”

“You fly,” you say, wondrously. “You fly through the air.”

He puffs up, flicking your nose affectionately. “Oh yeah. On land, we humans have our own tricks.”

“Technically, it’s in the air,” you point out.

“Whatever,” he dismisses, “semantics, semantics. B! Grab the board, c’mon, c’mon.”

Bruce Wayne sighs, as if he suffers from this kind of treatment from Jason all the time, and shuffles around to grab whatever ‘the board’ is. You watch in amusement as he finds some kind of wooden plank, handing it to Jason who handles it with ease, ruffling Jason’s hair in the process.

“B,” Jason complains, moving to flatten his hair. “It’s already like a nest, don’t make it worse!”

Jason has naturally curly hair, the kind that makes you want to run your hands through it continuously. He likes to groan about how it gets intensely tangled with all the wind and the salt, but you privately think that it makes him look stunning. Makes him look like a true sailor, or whatever means a true man of the sea.

“What’s that?” you ask, pointing to the wood. “You’re swimming with that?”

“It’s not swimming, per se,” Jason clarifies, showing it to you. He gently grabs one of your wrists, bringing your hand to feel the smooth surface. “I’ll be surfing instead. Bruce’ll sail the boat, and he’s a really good at catching the wind, so he’ll maximise the speed so I don’t fall in. Hopefully it’ll be fast enough for you!”

“Surfing?”

Jason grins, an identical glint to his father’s shining in his eyes. “You’ll see. B, you ready?”

“Always,” Bruce Wayne replies, reaching to undo the knot connecting them to the Bat. “Is Alfred ready?”

Jason cups his mouth, hollering up to the Bat, “Alfie! Are you good?”

An elderly man peers over the edge, and he squints down at you all. You stare up at him, and he waves. “Happy whenever, Master Jason!”

“Alright!” Jason grins, dropping into a crouch right in front of you. His nose almost touches yours with how close you are to him. “Are you read to swim to your heart’s content?”

Your heart feels so warm and so full that it could burst apart. It doesn’t, but it’s a near thing, and instead, you just nod eagerly and reach for Jason’s hand.

Your fingers lace together, and he gives you a gentle squeeze. His grin softens into a smile, and he presses his forehead to yours.

Bruce Wayne clears his throat from behind. Jason rolls his eyes, pulling away, giving your hand one more squeeze. “Ignore him,” Jason mutters, “he’s just a salty old man. Oi, you really think you can get Robin moving? Maybe we ought to get Dick back so he can teach you how to operate his boat.”

“I’m the one who taught him how to sail,” Bruce Wayne raises an eyebrow, “and I’m the one who taught you. Don’t think I haven’t forgotten that you still haven’t beaten me in a race yet.”

“You’re blessed by the fuckin’ wind gods,” Jason snarks back, “it’s unfair when we race!”

“Language,” Bruce Wayne corrects. “Now, are you going to surf or not? You’re wasting time with your friend here. Boring her, probably.”

You want to tell them that you could sit here, elbows and shoulders rested against the edge of the ship, and watch them interact for the rest of the day. The two of them operate with such familiarity that it’s almost hypnotic—this, you realise, is true family. Mistress Talia is probably your closest parental figure, and even then, you’re wary to call her anything that resembles ��parental’.

“Oh yeah, shit,” Jason says, barreling on even as Bruce Wayne mutters ‘language’ again, “we need to get you swimming. When was the last time you swam?”

“I swam here,” you reply, raising an eyebrow.

“That’s a dumb answer and you know it,” Jason says, pointedly. “When was the last time you felt like you had exercised your tail?”

You hesitate. That’s enough for him.

“Of fucking course. B, c’mon! You always say exercise is good for health, both physical and mental. Let’s help out here.”

“Rope yourself,” Bruce Wayne orders, tossing Jason a coil. With dextrous moves, Jason loops the rope around his waist, securing it tightly even with his wooden board tucked under his arm. The rope linking the Robin and the Bat together slackens, and Bruce Wayne reaches up to unfurl large sails.

Almost immediately, the ship begins to move. Being a smaller ship, the Robin starts to drag ahead of the Bat, wind catching in fabric.

Jason grins, running a hand through his curls, glancing out at sea. Then he glances back down at you. “You ready?”

You smile back, and dive backwards, spine arching. The water splashes over your body like a home welcoming you back, and you beat at your fins with apprehension. The boat hasn’t gained any momentum yet, so you swim circles around it and splash water playfully at Jason.

When you finally surface for air, gills still closed, Bruce Wayne has both his eyebrows raised and Jason is cheering. “You’re fast,” Bruce Wayne notes.

“Don’t knock me into the water when I’m on the board,” Jason calls, as the boat starts to pull away, “else you’re gonna have to save me again!”

You wave in acknowledgement, before ducking under the water again to feel the rush of the warm water against your skin. Being close to the surface, sunlight penetrates the water and colours it a vibrant blue, and you watch in awe as the coral on your arms beam in bright colour. The water runs through your hair, and it sends tingles down your back.

The Robin doesn’t take long before it catches speed, and you resurface to catch sight of Jason jumping onto the edge, reaching out to feel the water flow through his fingertips. He completely at ease, totally in his element, and you realise that you’ve never actually seen him like this, always meeting each other in small caverns or caves. You think you like this kind of meeting instead.

Jason cups his mouth like earlier, and hollers your name. Almost instinctively, you draw closer to him, and he beams down at you as you arrive. “Let’s go!” he yells, and he holds up his wooden board.

Then, without so much as a fanfare, he drops the board onto the water, jumping simultaneously. His feet land steadily on the wooden board, and the board instantly skips across the surface of the ocean, and his hands hold onto something like a metal bar connected to rope. It keeps him tightly in contact with the Robin, and he lets himself fall behind the boat as he gets pulled along.

You slow to watch him, eyes tracking the way the board skips across the water. It wobbles, extremely unstable, but Jason manages to wrestle it under control with an expression of deep concentration. Once he stabilises, he gives his bar a tug, and Bruce Wayne throws an arm back in response. Another sail unfurls, and the boat speeds up.

Jason yells your name again. He’s grinning, shining like a beacon, and his blue eyes sparkle with excitement.

You smile, ducking under. Within seconds, you’ve reached him, and you flip onto your back to be able to look up at him. Side by side, you swim and he surfs, and he grins down at you, even letting go of his bar with one hand to wave.

You wave back. He calls down to you, “Let’s race?”

He must read the apprehension on your face, because he throws his head back into a laugh that wracks his entire body, almost throwing him off balance. You panic, instantly ready to catch him if he falls, but he rights himself quickly and tugs the bar again.

Bruce Wayne looks back, confused, and Jason makes a few signs with an arm above his head. The man understands immediately, and he throws back a thumbs up. “See?” Jason says, looking back down at you, running another hand through his curls. You try not to get distracted by the movement. “B can go faster. Can you?”

“Don’t get cocky, Jason,” you warn. “I’m a mer.”

Jason’s smile turns sharp. “I’m never cocky. Let’s see who tires first—you or the wind. What do you say?”

You stare up at him. The sun bakes him in a white-yellow halo, and at a certain angle, he’s too blinding to even look at. This, you understand, is Jason Todd.

“You’re on,” you say, finally. “Don’t cry when you lose.”

Jason’s laughter follows you as you drop underwater, and you lose yourself in the satisfying flexing of your tail. The sun beams down on the two of you, and you race ahead, gunning for the Robin.

For a moment, all you can experience is this race. The race under and above water, the race into sunset.

What’s most memorable, though, is when the wind calms, and Bruce Wayne declares the two of you both winners. In the end, none of you had really tried to get ahead, always maintaining the same speed. Jason helps you aboard, the familiar weight of his shawl resting onto your shoulders, and he ensures that you’re comfortable with cushions against the wooden seats so the grain doesn’t rip at your scales.

Bruce Wayne, you come to realise, is a kind man. He truly cares about his son, and you can see it in the way that he caters to all of Jason’s needs before Jason himself even knows he needs them. He reaches for freshwater and presses it into Jason’s hand as soon as Jason mentions he’s parched, and he cards his fingers through Jason’s curls to rid them of as many knots as possible. He loves his son.

Jason, though, doesn’t seem to notice any of that as he fusses over you. He periodically reaches overboard to fill a cup with saltwater to hydrate your scales, gently pouring it over so none of it spills into the boat. He keeps a hand laced with yours, as if you’re disappear, and the three of you converse until sundown.

Leaving is the hardest thing to do. You didn’t realise how much you had enjoyed the day until it was time to leave.

“Please let Talia know that we’ve very much enjoyed your presence,” Bruce Wayne tells you, “and that we’d like to formally invite you to come over regularly.”

You blink up at him. “To swim, sir?”

“Just Bruce,” he corrects for the umpteenth, but he smiles, “and for anything, really. It has been a while since mer and human were able to converse together like this—it would be a pity for you and Jason to grow apart because you haven’t found the time to meet.”

“Right.” You nod, because interracial diplomacy was very important.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Jason drawls, “he means that you’re a nice person and that I don’t have enough friends. So it would be great if we hung out more, or something.”

“Jason,” Bruce Wayne says, taken aback, “it’s not that you don’t have enough friends, but living on a ship—”

“My life is on the ocean,” Jason asserts, tone sharp, as if this isn’t the first time they’ve had this conversation. “That’s fact. I don’t care about life on land, B. The sea is all I need.”

It might be a trick of the light, as the sun continues to lower, but you swear Bruce Wayne gains at least ten years of age in a single moment. “I know, Jay,” he murmurs, “I know.”

Jason shrugs, looking away to you, hand squeezing yours. “You need to go soon?” he asks, quietly.

“Yeah.” You look down at the water, as if one of your seniors will pop up out of nowhere any second. “Soon.”

“Well, don’t let us keep you,” Bruce Wayne announces, an air of finality to his words. “Again, thank you very much for coming and entertaining us. We would love to see you again.”

Entertaining us, his voice echoes. Entertain him, Mistress Talia orders.

Your back stiffens. “Yes, sir.”

“B,” Jason says, lowly.

Bruce Wayne raises up two hands in surrender, standing up and walking away to the stern of the boat. He tugs on the rope that links to the Bat, probably making sure it’s sturdy, and it gives you a brief moment of privacy with Jason as he’s gone.

“Hey,” Jason murmurs, brushing a thumb over your knuckles, “you enjoy today?”

You smile. “Yes.”

“Come again?”

You reach out and brush a finger across his cheekbone. “Yes.”

Jason beams, leaning into your touch. “Great. Amazing. Well, do you happen to know when you’re free next? Or is it ‘cause you’ve taken a whole day off today that it’ll be a while before you’re let out?”

Sometimes, Jason is too observant for his own good. “Mistress Talia will contact you,” you promise. “Don’t worry.”

“I’ll always worry,” Jason says. “That’s a fact.”

“You have many facts in your life,” you reply, going for levity.

It doesn’t work. Jason just shrugs, and says, “Well, yeah. I love the ocean, and I love you. You’re my best friend. Those are facts.”

“I love you too,” you echo, “you’re my best friend too.”

Jason smiles. “You fucking better.”

“There’s a ship! It’s inbound! There’s a ship!”

Something akin to deja vu rattles your bones, but in a way that is foreboding and morbid. You snap your music scores shut, ignoring the weary sigh of your music director, and you swim right out of the room and run into the courier.

“It’s the Bat!” the girl bemoans, “he’s come to kill us all!”

Last time you saw Bruce, he had been weighed down by the repeated fights with Jason about something called ‘work-life balance’. You didn’t really understand their culture, but you offered an ear for Jason and a sympathetic voice for Bruce. Still, he didn’t seem murderous at all.

“Hey,” you hiss, grabbing her roughly by the shoulder so she doesn’t throw herself at the first person she sees and starts screeching in horror, “pull yourself together. Did they say where the Bat is?”

Her eyes are blown-wide, and real fear clutches at her. Your throat goes dry. “They say he’s wearing the uniform—the uniform of the Bat. He has come to kill us all.”

The Bat wasn’t the original name of the ship. Bruce had admitted to you that it was once called Martha, after his mother, but after his parents’ deaths at the hands of rogue pirates, he had rebranded it and worn an anonymous uniform to get revenge. But since taking in his sons, he’s decided to put the uniform away, and instead toe the line of legality in terms of chasing pirates.

If Bruce had taken out the uniform…

You don’t want to know what that means. You have to be there when he arrives.

Your music director yells your name. “I know you have an arrangement with Mistress Talia,” she snaps, “but you must return this instant—”

“Sun-chaser,” Talia orders, appearing at the end of the wall, “beside me. Now.”

Something is wrong. Something is wrong.

“When was the last time you saw Todd?” she interrogates as the two of you speed out of academy grounds, tone icy. She’s never talked to you like this before, and you keep a healthy distance. “Did he seem well?”

“Jason was fine,” you reply, bemused, “a little stressed, but what teenager who lives the majority of his life on a boat isn’t?”

“Now is not the time for jokes,” Talia barks, “tell me the truth. Was he troubled?”

“Troubled? No—”

“Then you stay here.” Talia stops suddenly, and she grips you so tightly it becomes painfully. “I do not want you in there.”

“In where?” you demand, because if there’s anything you’ve learnt from Jason in these past years, it’s how to challenge authority. You channel your inner Jason Todd as you square up, trying not to wilt underneath Talia’s sharp glare.

“My Beloved is not in a good state,” Talia says briskly, as if she wants to get out of this conversation as soon as possible, “and I do not believe he would want anyone to see him like so. Stay here. You will know when I call for you.”

You open your mouth to ask for clarification because you are currently under water, where no human can actually survive, but the thundering bellow of “Talia!” has you freezing at that very spot.

Bruce Wayne is underwater. In your underwater kingdom.

“Fuck,” Talia whispers, and she shoves you roughly to the side, trying to hide you behind a nearby building. “Stay there,” she orders, before her voice is being yelled again, and you catch the sight of a wraith in black storming across the seabed.

“What did you to do him?” Bruce yells, consumed by rage. “What did you do to him?!”

“Beloved, I—”

“Did you get her to lure him in?” He says your name, and your blood runs cold. “Was it all a trick? Was it all to seduce my son?”

“Beloved—”

“Tell me it wasn’t you!” he roars, and now you realise where the fear surrounding the Bat comes from. You can’t move. “Tell me you had no hand in my son’s death!”

Death. Was he troubled? Seduce. When was the last time you saw him?

“I had no hand,” Talia says calmly, placatingly, not at all surprised that a human can breath underwater, “in fact, I didn’t know until after you knew.”

“That is a lie,” Bruce Wayne snarls, “that is a lie—”

“Jason’s death is a great tragedy, beloved, I know, but you mustn’t yet that—”

“Bring her to me.”

Talia pauses. “I’m sorry?”

“Bring her to me,” Bruce Wayne commands, and it is with a tone so cutthroat that you’re pretty sure he’d kill Talia right then and there if she didn’t obey. “Where is she?”

“I don’t—”

Jason’s death. Jason’s dead?

Subconsciously, you had drifted out from behind the building and the movement was instantly clocked by Bruce Wayne. His head snaps over to stare at you like a predator, and he stalks over like you’re the reason why Jason died.

Jason died? When? How?

Just last month, he had saved some of that Northern Continent delicacies for you to taste. It had been unbearably sour, but then he had a cup of sugary water ready, because Jason was always prepared like that.

He’s…dead?

“You—” Bruce Wayne hisses, but his voice breaks in the middle, and it sounds less furious and more anguished. “I—you—he—”

“Beloved,” Talia cuts in, tense, and she shoots you an expression that says get the fuck out of here, “please, let me make you some food or drink, you’ve spent days getting here—”

“Don’t touch me,” he snaps, throwing her hand off of his shoulder. He stumbles over to you, movements clumsy against the resistance of water, and you can’t help but reach out to stabilise him like the many times he had helped you above water. “Please,” he says, looking at you, something irrevocably broken on in the inside, “please, just tell me, did you—did you love—”

He breaks off. He can’t continue. He just grips at your arms so hard that you know you’re going to bruise, waiting for you to do something. He’s almost begging with his eyes.

“Jason,” you say slowly, “died?”

The fractured expression on the man’s face shatters. “You don’t know,” he says, breathless, “you don’t know.”

“When, Bruce? When? How? Bruce, where is he? Where is he—”

With the entirety of his chest, Bruce Wayne lets out a wail so painful that you fall to your knees alongside him. His shoulders shake, eyes rimmed red, and he clutches at you as if you could bring Jason to him.

“Shh, shh,” Talia hushes, running her fingers through Bruce’s hair, reminiscent of the way Bruce would do it to Jason. “Deep breaths, beloved. Make good use of that charm you have.”

The heatstone against your chest burns. Suddenly, all you want to do is rip it away and scream for Jason to come back so you could use yours, the one that you share.

Bruce whispers something, voice too hoarse to make it audible. He tries again, and you lean closer, and you realise he’s saying your name.

“He loved you,” he says, so full of grief and pain. “He loved you. Did you…love him?”

Love. You’ve known Jason for approximately five and a half years, which, in the grand scheme of things, isn't that long. But you know, deep down, that Jason meant a whole lot more to you than anyone else in this world.

“I do, I do,” you press your forehead against Bruce's, “I always will, I always will.”

Bruce nods, frailly, void of all his earlier energy. Now, all you can see is a father grieving his son, and your heart starts to crack. “You loved him,” he repeats, “you loved him.”

“Bruce,” you say, firmly, “is he…gone? Truly gone?”

The man shudders, and he collapses in your arms. He forehead lands against your knees, and he sobs.

You know now. Jason Todd, your best friend and the one human you will ever love, is gone.

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