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cetaceans-pls · 17 days

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Free Balling, Free Whaling

written for qwerty in thanks for their generous donation towards @dcufans4palestine 's recent charity drive! thanks again for taking part, and thank you to the mods for organising this event :')

qwerty, your request was both detailed and open-ended, and this turns out is the Perfect Recipe for me to go crazy. hope you enjoy this!

Sometimes, your community is you, a seal you've never actually met, a number of late-night service industry workers, 2 former grad students, and a lady who’s a leggy killer whale on land. Sometimes, that’s plenty.

Rated T, Gen, Jason Todd-centric. Read on Ao3 below:

or read here on tumblr below the cut:

See, the thing is, for all that Gothamites take Great Big Pride in being stone cold motherfuckers, they are in fact suckers for a pretty face.

And it’s hard to get prettier, sweeter, than a goddamn all-natural harbour seal that gets spotted off of Pleico Beach, in clear view of like the 10 million people enjoying this day of unbearable sun in Gotham, sweet-faced women in cute bikinis and middle-aged men in cute broadshorts all braving the sharp pebbles of the beach with just a beach towel between body and gravel, all scampering up to take ten thousand pictures of a wee face in the near distance peeking out at them.

Jason had laughed himself sick, because the appearance of a harbour seal in the bay had upstaged what had been quite a big spectacle of a thing with the joker and his 12 joker-lite disciples doing some weird biblical (?) reenactment at the Cathedral while they tried to steal some holy relic. Jason’s well-read but bibles had been so ubiquitously pressed upon him by well(?)-meaning church types in his messy youth that he’d never gotten ‘round to reading it, so he's unclear on the reference, but also there hadn’t been much time to analyse the tableau the guys had made, since:

i) Batwoman had massacred them right quickly because she'd been waiting for a date in the area and didn't appreciate the police presence;

and

ii) The nightly news had covered the incident with one (1) grainy still of the gang in some weird robes in the sepulcre for about 8 seconds before dedicating entire 20-minute blocks to coverage of Sheila the Harbour Seal, complete with marine biologists and seal-holograms.

Gotham Bay used to be a thing of nightmares, the way much of Gotham had been a thing of nightmares not even 2 decades ago, but under the stern but loving hand of Wayne Enterprise, both have recovered with a steely exuberance that makes bone-deep Gothamites feel Some Type of Way. Jason remembers being young and sitting at the docks illegally fishing for squid to sell to Alberta (the sole stalwart fishmonger based in the Narrows, most similar in appearance to a deep sea thing with a gaunt face and alarming teeth, who had a tendency to donate leftovers to the soup kitchen on 54th and Hertz, single-handedly making the residents of one of the most under-served parts of Gotham shockingly competent authorities of good proper fish stews), and how there would be a crust of muck and algae and blood audibly thunking against the wooden supports.

He’s still got a thumb bone at home, the first one he’d found on the beach back in the day when the mafias really acted like they had the right to run Gotham ragged, dumping bodies like it’s their civic duty, and he’s pretty sure most people around his age and the income-bracket of his youth have got one of these historical, hysterical souvenirs.

So to’ve gone from that, all of that, to Pleico Beach now hosting young families and harbour seals alike…. Christ. Now that’s biblical (maybe).

Jason’s not the biggest fan of crowds, though, and also feels some amount of toxic embarrassment to be caught in public trying to catch sight of some gal. This is why he’s here on his squid dock at 3 o’clock in the morning with his Bat-grade night-vision goggles, twice already blinding his own damn self when he’d pulled out his phone to google seal behaviour and inadvertently blasting his retinas with the brightness of his screen.

Probably should’ve checked and realised the little lady is likely less active at night before he got himself out here, but it’s not like it’s some great loss to just be out in the spray, chilled to the bone because he’s got Red Hood’s top on but just shorts on the bottom and late-summer/early-fall nights in Gotham can be so so frigid and so so loving. He’s halfway to wondering if he can find, like, a safety pin or something, tie it to the grappling wire he’s got in his right boot and do some squid-fishing for old times’ sake when there’s an almighty splash! at the end of the dock, and heavy ker-thunk! of something slamming into it.

Man, just how damn big is Sheila? And nowhere in any of the articles did it say that harbour seals had a 20 foot vertical leap! Jason’s up and running towards the end, imagination quickly conjuring up an image of Sheila with a nipped tail, having made an almighty jump onto the dock to escape a predator, though what large predator can survive Gotham Bay even in her current condition is a question and a half all by itself, and-

Uh.

Jason blinks, then takes off the night vision goggles to blink again.

Uhm.

A Large Predator, a veritable Eater of Seals, a killer whale with hands and knees and feet blinks at him back.

“Uh,” Jason says dumbly. Is this an undersea god type of situation? In which case he really wishes he’d brought his comms with him so that he could get Oracle to page Aquaman, emergency in aisle 3 (an orca’s evolved to have arms and legs by the frozen peas). “Is this a beaching?” he asks, possibly to the creature, possibly to whatever higher being might be listening. Deep deep inside, in that place that feels a certain giddy pleasure when Gotham wrings him dry and makes him come back for seconds, he’s a little warmly astonished that this many years of duty in and there’s still so damn much to be surprised by. “Are you okay?’ he says next, and manfully resists making clicking noises like a bad impression of a dolphin.

His mouth says these reasonably thoughtful things, but his body’s crouched low, ready for a judo grapple against this being that’s got to have at least 100 pounds on him (and he’s already a man of many pounds).

This orca-person somehow manages, with no eyebrows and no lips, to look at him warily. “I’m good. Are you?” they ask him right back, and whatever one might imagine a whale sounds like in English, one would be wrong. It’s like hearing a jackhammer suffering through conjugation, like the twang of a musical saw through the crispy static of a bad mobile connection.

It’s unbearable how in 4 words Jason knows with Absolute Certainty that this creature is a Gothamite, though. Who else says ‘good’ like it has 12 syllables? He finds himself relaxing, and straightens up. “Can’t say I was expecting, uh, you, but I’m not doing so bad. I’m Jason, are you in trouble?"

They look at him with the beady black eyes, body tensed and massive and toothy and packed dense with muscle rounded out with hearty blubber. They seem to come to a decision, and shrug shoulders like rounded mountains. “I was just out for a swim to check on the seal. Uh.” For the first time since their appearance, the great orca seems at a little bit of a loss. “I’m. Orca?”

Jason can’t help a chuckle, can’t hold it back now that’s fully fully clear that he’s not about to have to fight This Creature. “I’m happy with calling you Orca, but if you have a preferred name, and,” he very politely does not look downwards, “pronouns, stuff like that, I’m pretty good at being respectful.”

When orca-people sigh, it comes a little out their blowhole. Jason’s trying to hold back laughter so hard he feels a little sick, and he thinks Orca can tell, because though the glossy dark skin of their cheeks can’t seem to show it, he suspects there’d be a blush there otherwise.

“You can call me Grace. Sexual dimorphism’s not very obvious in killer whales, it’s mostly down to size.”

Jason shrugs. “Nice to meet you, Miss? Uhm. Grace Orca. And size isn't the only thing that matters.”

She snorts (the blowhole keeps getting involved!! Lord god!!), and picks up what Jason had thought was some dilapidated sail cloth but is instead a dilapidated sail cloth sewn in the approximate shape of a coat that could fit a 9 foot Lady Orca. “You’re taking this extremely well,” she says, squinting keenly at him.

“Can’t live in this city without being respectful of all her inhabitants,” Jason says with grave seriousness, before cracking into a smile. “I was hoping to catch sight of Sheila, you know, the harbour seal. Seems like I got to see a cool, uh, marine lady regardless, so it’s not like I’m going to run away screaming.” He doesn't add that 2 weeks ago he was making small talk over alien canapes with this guy that looked like 2 giraffes stapled ass-to-ass with 3 sets of diaphanous wings on some Outlaw business, so comparatively speaking, she's So Regular.

The facial muscles of a orca-person should preclude them from emoting very well, but Grace manages to get across warm surprise with great aplomb. “Are you a marine biologist?” she asks in the excited tones of someone who believes they’ve met a kindred spirit, and Jason makes a note to check in on all the Graces in Gotham who are marine biologists.

Jason shakes his head. “Nah, I’ve just never seen a wild seal in Gotham before. When I was a kid you got more dismembered feet than fish out here, so I got a little excited. Why were you out and about looking for her?”

A thought strikes him, and he winces. “I’m a city boy, but I get that it’s law of the jungle rules out there, and I respect that. If you are planning to eat her, though, you don't need to tell me .”

She looks like he's called her a slur. “ Of course not! ” she yells, shrill enough it’s half a whistle. “What kind of a monster do you think I am?!”

There’s no easy, courteous way to answer this, so Jason goes for blank honesty instead. “All of god’s creatures need to eat to live, man. I gotta make my peace with how cute cows can get when I’m eating a hamburger, I sure as shit am not gonna judge you .”

Grace Orca looks at him like he’s the weird one here on the dock, and to be fair to her, he maybe actually is. “I just wanted to check on her welfare ,” she says with injured pride, starting to stride down the dock back to shore, one step for every 3 of Jason’s. “They don’t tend to be fully solitary animals, and they’re not migratory either, so I was trying to figure out how she drifted all the way down here. Didn't manage more than a look before she swam off, though.”

Jason can’t exactly blame Sheila for her nerviness. He’s pretty proud with himself for acting real regular walking in sortof-step with Grace when her teeth are the size of his thumbs and he’s enviously, jealously regarding her muscular shoulders. Swimmers’ shoulders, damn. “We got any breeding colonies near here? I know people who know people, could probably figure out how to relocate her home if she needs it. And, uhm.” He very gentlemanly lets her go down the rickety wooden steps first (he’s not confident they’d take both their weight). “I’m sorry for implying you’d eat her.”

At this, she does gnash her teeth just a little. “The bay’s recovered a lot, water quality’s better, algal bloom’s more under control, and there are a couple of fish nurseries that are looking really promising.” Grace sighs gustily (her blowhole wipples like the lid of a tea kettle aa!!). “But we’re not doing so well that we can support an apex predator. I’d starve out there, and if I didn’t I’d be eating things more valuable than me, so.”

Ah, shit. Jason’s has a rough idea of rough living, but a street rat would experience life a lot different to a Literal Street Rat. Waylon’s got it rough but now that he’s borderline the de-facto union leader of the Great Gotham Underground Coalition, half the service workers in town will comp his food on sight. Grace has no such social influence, or Jason would’ve heard of her before. He glances at her, and feels some weird solidarity of being a thing that is of but maybe isn’t welcome to Gotham.

Maybe she got made a monster, too.

“That sucks,” he says, pebbles crunching underground. “You do the marine biology stuff for work? And hey, for ambushing you on your chill nighttime swim, let me treat you to dinner?”

She draws to a halt, and he almost loses an eye on the peak of her dorsal fin. Instead, he’s intensely whapped by her powerful tail when she turns on a dime to stare at him. “Are you hitting on me?” Grace says, gone shrill again, and isn’t that a thing.

Jason grins; he’s got teeth too. “Haven’t made up my mind yet, but I’m never gonna say no to good company and good food. Patrice’s over on 12th and Bakri is open all hours, and if you don’t mind takeout we can go sit in a park or something. I have so many ocean-based questions, Grace, you’d be doing me a a favour.”

He’s also uncertain if she needs to, uhm, Submerge, and the Dumbfuck Giant Fountain with Horses in the park at 13th and Bakri would give her plenty of space to splash. God, he makes less efforts to be diplomatic with emperors of ancient civilisations, but Jason is relatively confident that he can predict the shape of Grace’s predicament, and 9 foot tall or no it sure seems like she deserves a gentler hand than most.

(There are a lot a lot a lot of scars all down her back, pale stripes on what should be glossy smooth inky black, and he doesn’t know what caused ‘em but he knows that they’re not right.)

No one’s ever accused him of being terribly smooth or charming, but Jason does okay. He cocks his head in question, knows he looks a little cute and a lot silly in between his armoured turtleneck and his knobbly knees all out in the open, and Grace sighs (!!) and goes “Hope your wallet’s ready for this.”

“What a lady wants, a lady’s gonna get,” Jason says with the confidence of a man with a platinum credit card with no conceivable limit, and off they go.

Patrice himself always takes the night shifts, too serious to be the sort of guy that would let teens suffer through night-time Gotham serving calzones on the cheap. Fair play to the man, after a short sharp scream when Grace has to hunker down to squeeze herself into his dinky little store, he’s back to being stone-faced damn damn quickly.

Said stony facade does relent, though, when he sees Jason peeking out from behind her. “You shouldn’t be having dinner so late, Jason,” he tuts with the severity of a man who doesn’t get to spend enough time tutting his own kids on account of his late night shifts.

Jason just snorts. “It’s not late if I stay up. This is my friend Grace, and we’re both starving.”

“You have a lovely store,” Grace says dutifully, and Patrice takes her rattling-whistling-whirring voice in stride, inclines his bald head with wispy hairs with great gravitas, and gives her a respectful nod of thanks.

“Sweet talkers,” he says gruffly. “What will you both have?” He eyes Grace, head tilted back to meet her face that’s tilted down (to avoid a droplight). “I got vegetarian pies.” He squints, reassesses. “And seafood marinara calzones, though I’m gonna have to bake ‘em so you’ll have to wait.”

Jason’s got squid on the brain. “How many do you want, Grace? ‘s my treat.”

She looks sedate up top, but her tail is whapping like she’s about to murder a great white shark. “Two?” she hazards, looking curiously awkward for being this awe-inspiring sight.

“Sounds good. Two dozen of your seafood best, Patrice, and hit me with a slice,” he pauses, and faintly wishes she had ears that would give away how she’s feeling instead of, uhhhh, ear holes?? Ear holes?? “Two slices? Of tiramisu, and a latte each. That sound good, Grace?”

“Two dozen is so many-” she starts in protest, this lady too in love with Gotham Bay to eat her fish, not even built to survive off of sewer rats like Waylon and the lads, and luckily Jason doesn’t even need to step in.

Patrice just rings their order up. “Growing kids need to eat,” he tells her very sternly, like she’s a regular customer, like he hadn’t shrieked a glass-shattering shriek at the first sight of her. “I’m gonna throw in some garlic knots, too. Got any allergies or anything, miss? God knows this boy's got the gut of a trash compactor,” he says with genuine affection.

Grace looks a little lost, and Jason figures that she isn’t an eldritch sea creature (because you’d seldom find something more self-assured than a 4,000 year old oarfish the size of a tectonic plate), figures that this change is kind of recent, but long ago enough that it’s been too too long since a well-meaning middle-aged person behind a counter has called her miss and smiled at her, and man, they need to come up with a better system on how to treat metas with dignity.

“My mom used to make really good seafood marinara,” she offers up instead, and Jason sees in real-time as Patrice’s eyes go a little misty as he adds mozzarella sticks and another half dozen calzones to their bill free of charge.

(Thank god for tip jars).

It takes 25 minutes and Patrice is sweaty and a little breathless by the time he’s bundled up their food, but the vibes are immaculate and tomato-tinged as they wander out his restaurant down to the park, right to the massive fountain.

Grace seems a little dazed by all that’s happened, which is good. Jason very intentionally is trying to leave her off-balance enough to spill her secrets (the better to serve her with!), and also while he’s not the most Warm and Affectionate person, by hook or by crook he’s been some type of older sibling for some pretty large chunk of his life, and he feels in his gut that Grace is younger so she’s just gonna have to suck it up and make peace with him being a bit of a coddler. To reduce any embarrassment on her part, Jason kicks off his shoes and sits on the lip of the fountain, feet in the cold, grimy water. It makes him shiver, just a little, but a sip of hot hot coffee has him sighing in delight.

“Go on, help yourself.” He nudges a bag over, grabbing a calzone wrapped in foil for himself.

After a brief pause, she shucks her coat, scrambles over the ledge to sit in the water, submerged just barely to her waist, but it’s clear that it’s some sort of soothing; her tail is lazily whipping in water, and he wonders if she even realises she’s gently making herself drift forwards and back. “Thanks,” she says. “Been a while since I got to eat cooked food.”

Yeah, damn, they really need to figure out some sort of soup kitchen/shelter situation for people who are people who just happen to be a little less regular.

“Patrice is a nice guy. Kinda traditional, but his youngest came out recently and he’s been working real hard to make himself more accepting. The pride calzone is gross as hell, though, do not recommend it.”

She, uhm, chortles, maybe? A jolly little sound, and Jason grins. “You’re laughing now, but you’re not gonna be laughing when I get you one of them and you realise that man’s put peaflowers and sardines and butter and shit just to get the colours right.”

Grace baps him with her enormous tail; it will bruise, and he’s charmed. “I still can’t tell if you’re a weird fetishist who’s trying to hit on me, but I think I’d forgive a lot for a pride-themed pie.”

“Promise I got brought up to be very respectful of women,” Jason says with the confidence of someone who had Wonder Woman in his upbringing. “You’re just really cool. It's rare to meet a marine biologist in general, you know, never mind a marine biologist who’s, uhm, extra marine.” Much of the walk to and from food has been heavy on pelagics and Cnidaria and Phocidae and Gulf streams and Jason understands maybe 65% of what she’s talking about, can really only spiritedly join in when they both go off on a growling tangent on sea-level rise and how it’s worsening the housing crisis in the city, and man, there’s just a lot to admire in that kind of fervent dedication to a damp cause.

She baps him again, but looks substantially more morose even though her more rigid jaw doesn’t seem to allow for downturned non-lips. “I used to be a marine biologist,” she says in mournful whale-song. “With a specialisation in marine mammal growth hormones and their applications in medicine. I had a little cubicle at the Gotham Aquarium and everything .”

Jason hums mildly. “Take it that the tail and stuff is a more recent development?”

She nods gruffly. “Had a real bad accident, got paralysed, and I did not respond to that in a super healthy way.”

Bruce has had his back broken, Babs is in a wheelchair still, Jason just fully fully died. He knows academically that there are ways to healthily process the complete and total upheaval of a life; he’s just not confident it’s attainable by anyone below the level of a bodhisatya. “My brother’s partner had a run-in with the joker, and she’s been in a wheelchair ever since. I don’t know how she does it.” He very carefully doesn’t look at her. “Don’t know how you’re doing it, but I’m glad you’re doing it anyways. Would’ve been a real quiet dinner tonight otherwise.”

Grace makes a strange burbling sound, and maybe cetaceans have cetacean feelings that English just can’t get across. “I’ve done some pretty fucked up things. The gene-splicing and dosing and orca-fication just so I could walk again isn’t the half of it. I’ve committed crimes , Jason.”

It takes an enormous effort of will to not laugh so hard his lungs give out. Miss ma’am’s out here swimming pro bono to check in on fish and seals and shit, and she’s making a confessional out of a fountain with a priest who’s got a body count in the dozens; Jason’s got blood caked on so thick he always always always smells just a little metallic (just a little too-human) nowadays. God, how hopelessly sweet. “Lay it out on me, I’ll be the judge of how bad is bad, Grace.”

She doesn’t look at him still, tucked up tight and folded away like she can compress the whole lot of her (she can’t). “I didn’t used to be full-time like this. Used to be I could swap, you know, between paralysed human me and super cool killer whale me with a syringe and 20 minutes of throwing up. Work was going great, I was collecting so much data, it was crazy, the tissue samples from my thighs had human and orca protein markers but from my tail it was all orca, and there’s a lot of implications for organ regeneration and tissue transfers, really, but…”

“Not hearing any greater crime than being a massive nerd,” Jason says mildly, and is splashed for his efforts (he’s laughing as he pushes his sodden hair back. “C’mon, spill, have another calzone.”

He tosses her one, and she digs into it immediately. “There’s a program we have for kids with rough backgrounds, at the aquarium. Kind of like day camp, over the summer, and the parents get free daycare and the kids get to do fun little activities and practice being aquarists, all that sort of stuff. It was great, but the funding didn't get renewed for this year, and I thought, hey, how hard can it be to get money for that?”

Jason winces, and Grace just keeps pushing on. “It’s the sort of thing you hear rogues doing all the time, right? Steal a great big diamond, something like that. So I ambushed this yacht party,” and she says yacht the way a lesser man might say ‘steaming pile of shit’, “and was gonna grab this ugly diamond off this woman who did not follow sanitation protocols for her yacht’s wastewater, and it was going mostly okay, and then…” She looks around, somehow managing to look hunted despite being a quintessential hunter. “Batman appeared.”

Jason goes cold, freezes up and feels a roaring rage, this unshakeable white-hot thing that always flares in response to any proof of Bruce’s negligence or foolishness or bloody-minded adherence to made-up rules causing so so much more damage than they could ever be worth. “Did he hurt you,” he says very mildly, but his jaw aches with how much he wants to shout and bite throats out.

Something in his tone must’ve given him away, or maybe it’s one of those whale-only senses, again. Grace turns, propelled by her tail, and looks at him with less guilt and more startled curiosity. “Hey,” she says tentatively, awkward in how she comforts. And for the first time in their brief but delightful acquaintance, she very tentatively reaches out to very delicately place her massive massive hand just above his knee, so so thoughtful to keep a barrier between his skin and hers, like that’s something he’d ever care about. “Hey, you okay? Did Batman do something to you? I’m willing to try biting him if he’s done something, Jason. I don’t know karate or anything but I’m pretty sure I could chew through armour?”

This startles a laugh out of Jason, though it’s a little ragged because his breathing is a little jacked. “Been treated pretty bad by him,” he settles on, in the end. “But I’m not one of those guys that thinks he’s great and amazing and perfect, so I’ve gotten pretty good at managing expectations and being disappointed in him all the time. But Grace, hey. You gotta tell me, I promise I need to know. Did he hurt you ?”

She shakes her massive, wondrous head. “I mean, he tried to get the gem back, but I’m not really someone you can just throw around. The problem was that I got really distracted fighting him, and he’s really scary even to me, so while I was looking his way I got shot a bunch of times by the woman’s bodyguards.”

Grace twists a little so he can see her back, and there’s a scattering of rounded scars just by her fin, and that’s awful awful close to her spine, and oh, god, he can see the Shape of Things.

“I think I would’ve died if I turned human again then, and I was pretty sure I was going to die in orca lite mode too. The Bat incapacitated the gunmen and hustled me away, and I think he was going to take me to a hospital, which, broadly speaking, if you see an unwell marine creature you really should go straight to the aquarium because the vet team there’s incredible, but I was really bleeding out and I had the human-to-orca serum and I told him I think taking the orca shot while I’m in orca mode’s probably the only thing that’s going to keep me alive.”

Fucking hell. “Then what?”

Grace shrugs, enormous and abashed. “He said okay, took off his cape so I wasn’t sitting bare-assed on the ground, and then offered to hold my hand while I took the shot.” She looks down at her hand, reflexively squeezes it. “Think he thought I was gonna die on him. Think I thought I was gonna die on him too. I’m not a behavioral ecologist, so this is just conjecture, but I don’t think orcas are big fans of dying alone either, so I appreciated it.”

Jason rests his hand on what would be her wrist, and squeezes down tight. God, he hates unloving deaths. “You're a social creature both ways, huh? Glad you weren’t alone, Grace,” Jason says with way more understanding than most. “Glad it worked. What happened after?”

“Well, I threw up for 20 minutes,” she says primly. “Then I knocked him on his ass and ran away, because I was scared he was going to arrest me.”

To be a fly on that wall, holy shit. Jason offers up a hi-5, and she takes it. “They should get you a medal,” he says with utmost seriousness. “What you been up to since? I’m a big man ‘round town, and if a lady like you were available for dinner dates I sure would’ve heard of it.” He doesn't know how to politely say how have you kept yourself alive since, so this light-hearted sleaze is all that he can manage.

Grace abruptly gets up, parting the seas, and climbs out without making eye contact. “The rest of the story up till right now isn’t something I’m proud of. You sure we can’t go back to talking about flood risks and poor urban planning?”

He climbs out too, and hands her more food. “We can talk ‘bout anything you like, but if you’ve got troubles, I can’t help with things I don’t know, you know?”

Grace screws up her face, and it doesn’t go very well because there’s a lot of face to screw up, but her unhappiness is clear. “I’m a muscle-for-hire,” she says all at once. “Have to work to eat, and not a lot of places are looking to give me work looking like this.”

An agitated lady of any persuasion is not a very fun sight to see, and it makes Jason really hopping mad, but 'really hopping mad' doesn't serve Grace Orca, so he swallows it down and shakes his head to clear it. "Been having a real rough time of it, huh, Grace? Sounds godawful." He does need more specifics if he's going to try to improve her lot in life, though. "What are the, like, top 3 things you wish you could fix?"

She laughs a whistling mirthless laugh. "Number 1? Take me back to when I was human again. I'll make my peace with being disabled, at least I wasn't getting shot at all the time."

Not a thing Jason can do for her, though not for a lack of want. "Man, don't we all have a time we wish we could go back to," he says in pale consolation. "Can't help with that, though I'll holler if I ever get my hands on a time machine, promise. What's next?"

Grace tugs on her overcoat. "Same as what I needed when I was still a grad student; would be nice to have some cash. Get some good food, maybe use my old ID and figure out how to rent a little apartment with a tub, something like that." She makes a disgruntled clicking sound. "I still can't get used to sleeping under water, and the serum's not perfect. It gets so cold."

Now that's a solvable issue! "Girl, that's easy peasy. Here, c'mon." He tugs out his wallet, tugs out his credit card that's got neither name nor limit to it, and hands it over. "My, uh, my dad's rich but I'm in a lifelong rebellious phase 'cos he's kindof an awful person a lot of the time. You don't need to hench if you don't want to, get takeout seafood marinara for the rest of forever, I don't give a shit."

She makes no move to take it from him, but he keeps holding it out towards her. "Seriously," he says. "Your number 2 most desired thing is something I can help with. If it makes you feel bad, you can catch me on the docks and pay me back once you've got a roof over your head and figured out some better employment. For now, you gotta take it."

Grace scowls (it's terrifying). "I don't gotta take anything! What am I going to do with someone else's card!" she yells, flinging his arm away. "This still isn't a face they'll let into Whole Veg!"

She takes a deep, gasping, shuddering breath, and lets it all out in a miserable, hurtling whisper.

"This isn't a shape that gets to be human."

And ain't that just the Shape of The Thing (that is no longer human). Jason can empathise on the inside of his head all day long, how he's not 100% all-natural all-human after a tango in a Pit, how he's pretty sure his eyes glow in the dark now and his canines are a little serrated and he's really really immune to most poison these days, but the face of him is the face of a person who does not make Patrice scream when he enters his shop. Strong arms and strong legs and strong tail and Grace still would rather go back to a time when she wasn't a powerful predator, when she couldn't even walk. Jason's never had to tackle this specific issue, and he isn't entirely sure what to say, except to say the things he used to say to himself in the dark of the night, too-sharp nails ripping through corpse-pale skin, tucked in a corner and barely (not-quite) human.

"Maybe not," he says, carefully. "Not your average Joanne, no. But it's a shape that gets to be a person, Grace. Can strip flesh from bone and replace it with the king of the sea, lose all your DNA 'cos you fought to survive, but you don't stop being a person. And so long as you're a living breathing person, you're entitled to care, and I'm entitled to look out for you. I know a guy who knows a guy who's got a bit of crocodile in him, I know a lady who knows a lady who's 1/16th cypress pine, and I know people who are technically all-human and they're the most discomfiting motherfucker on Earth. And I know all of 'em and all of 'em know me, and now I know you and you know me, so do you know what I think your third wish is, Grace?"

"What?" she says like she's trying to sound angry but mostly she just sounds sad.

"It's company, isn't it? People to check in on you like you check in on Sheila, people to have calzones with, people to talk shop with, people to hold your hand when you're not feeling good. Tell me true; is that wish number three?"

The fight's gone out of her, and hers isn't a face made for crying but Jason hates that she looks like she wants to anyways. Months and months and months sleeping in the sea and committing crimes she didn't want to for the lacklustre joy of continuing a wretched existence, and now she's getting harangued by some rando she met on the docks in the middle of the night.

Still, though, he's just got this one little push left. He can lead a killer whale to a seafood marinara calzone, but he can't force her to eat. See, consent's also a massive massive part of personhood, so he's got to wait. She's got to say it.

At long last, in a tiny voice that's like a distant chirp, Grace says "I don't want to be so alone anymore."

And with a smile spitting sparks like an electric eel having a real time of it all, Jason says "Your wish is my command".

It's gone 4 in the morning right now, and Jason's without most of his gear, so he can't really go all out All Out the way he wants to, show off and showboat for Grace to illustrate to her how, uhm, colourful and varied the threads are that make up the tapestry that is Gotham. He's limited by addresses he knows off the top of his head and people he knows would be at home right now.

Enter the cute, slightly-rundown brownstone duplex 4 blocks away from the Scheyichbi Botannical Gardens. It's a pretty chilly night, like frost is an imminent threat, but the front door (that he'd jimmied open) leads to a veritable greenhouse of vegetation, obliging monsteras with leaves dipped low, pothos sprawling like wildfire, a ficus in the corner taller than a man, bundles of mums flourishing up to the size of ottomans. "Pam, don't kill us, 's just Jason!" he'd yelled as soon as he came in, because he knows her and her hair trigger response to invaders (Venus fly traps the size of Honda Civics). "It's an emergency, and Harley if you're in, come say hi too!"

There's a sound like a mighty oak getting splintered in a storm, but that's just Ivy acting a little dramatic (she's very understandably very sensitive to day-night cycles). There's also a light jingling sound, so it seems like he's gotten a little lucky.

Grace meanwhile is trying to hide behind his back, this technical criminal gone so awkward over a spot of breaking-and-entering. "Jason, what the hell is going on?" she tries to whisper furtively, but given her throat and her build it's ringing loud and clear.

The jingling comes closer at a rapid rate.

"I just wanted you to meet these nerdy chicks I know, you guys can have ladies' night out and talk about how shitty graduate school was, or whatever," Jason says, before ducking down to the ground.

Grace does not have similar reflexes, and so is helpless in the face of Harley sprinting down the steps, shotgun in one hand, cute pyjama bottoms making the clinking sound 'cos the draw ties have little bells sewn to them. Harley, who'd been ready to kill a second ago, claps eyes on Grace Orca in her living room, and immediately screeches like maybe she's part barn owl. "Oh my god!" she screams, not slowing down a tad, "oh my god, Pammy, come the hell down! Jay's brought in thee cutest girlie in the world!" And just like that Grace is tackled and then picked up in a hug, picked up feet-clear-off-the-ground picked up, and man, Jason's so good at plans.

"I hate all of you," Pamela says as she comes down the stairs in a robe, and she's a lady up top but today her legs have strangling vines 'round them like it's what she gets instead of leg hair, and when she turns to the side you can just about make out that half her hair's just spines. "What the hell's going on?"

Jason gets up, brushes himself off. "Pam, Harley, meet my newest friend, Grace Orca. She's got a PhD in marine biology, and she went rogue for a bit 'cos she needed money, and now I'm doing my civic duty in setting her on the right path."

"Right path," Pamela says testily, scowling at him, plucking burrs from sleep-heavy eyes. "At 4 in the morning?"

"No time like the present," Jason says, helping her with a seedpod stuck to her lashes. "C'mon," he says real quietly. "She could do with some looking out for, before she gets in too deep."

They both look over to where Grace is now festooned in a knitted afghan around her shoulders, Harley sitting with her in a loveseat as she very cheerfully spills her life's story to Grace, who goes from looking immensely awkward (Harley's college days) to intensely, feverishly angry (must've hit the joker just now).

Pamela sighs. "I'm not in the habit of picking up strays," she says meaningfully, even as she grows both ears out into pitcher plants, the better to look more inhuman with.

"No," Jason says matter-of-factly. "But you've never been one to let a sweet shrub wither, either."

She can't argue with that.

(Three hours later, they're all having breakfast at this little hole-in-the-wall diner run by a cute couple that left henchmanning around the time Harley did, and Grace has been made master of

1. The pink and purple afghan from Pam and Harley's lovenest;

2. Jason's credit card;

3. A little woven beach bag Harley had had lying around for short term storage of snacks and items;

and

4. An old smartphone of Pam's, complete with a sim card furnished by Gerry who's the barista, on account of him knowing Akechi who got out of henchmanning a couple of years before he did to start a successful mobile phone kiosk in Queensbury Mall two blocks down).

It's brunch, and Grace and Jason are out in the garden seating area of a cheerful little Brazilian café, enjoying the slight peeks of sun between the clouds. Grace looks a little dazed, which is pretty understandable given a good few hours in the company of Gotham's premiere power couple, but she's also looking pretty, ah, happy. She's got any number of kiss marks all over her face, because Harley's affectionate by nature, and Jason thinks it's an awful cute look on her (he is himself decorated in three).

"Waylon's office hours are Thursdays and Fridays," he tells her over sandwiches. "Noon to 5, and I texted you his address. He's kinda prickly at the start, and don't call him Killer Croc ever because it's pretty rude, but if you tell him what it's been like for you he'll tell you what it's been like for him, and I think that'll be good for both of you. And the other address I sent to you is this lady that runs this fish shop in the Narrows. I haven't spoken to Alberta in years, don't think she even remembers me, but that woman is unshakeable and loves fish, so I feel like you two would probably get along."

Grace nods, attentive and studious like she wants to have a pen and notebook in hand to take notes with. In the cool loving light of day, after hours and hours in Jason's company (and then Patrice's and Harley's and Pam's), she's looking a good deal more relaxed, had done little more than good-naturedly say "Don't worry about it," when Euvaldo had let out a manly yell when he'd first been startled by her entrance, and it's a good look. "And who're we meeting now?" She looks around to make sure no one's listening, though given that she's a 9-foot-tall orca-woman of course everyone is straining to eavesdrop even as they politely pretend they aren't. "I think after this I want to go to the aquarium," she tells him, a little shy and a little steely. "I want to let my friends know I'm okay, kindof. I want to figure out if I can get accessibility services to accommodate me, see if I can't get back to doing good work. Seems like after the first scream, people get used to me pretty quick?"

Jason snorts. "I didn't even scream once, thanks. And I know you're still kinda cut-up about keeping my credit card, so before I let you go off to do your cool girl scientist shit, I thought you'd want to hear from the horse's mouth himself that it's okay for you to commit a little fraud."

"The horse?" she says quizzically.

Jason squirms. "My da-"

"Jason."

And Jason looks up, and it's Bruce looking at him and at Grace with a broad, unfeeling smile, tenser than a bowstring.

"Bruce," he says. On one hand, it's maybe an asshole move to spring this on Bruce, but on the other hand, it's not like Bruce wouldn't have heard word of what Jason's been up to. No, the most important thing is to make Bruce see Grace and see how Grace has been failed, systemically and personally, so that maybe next time a different poor fuck won't have to suffer the way she's been made to suffer.

It's the Red Hood's duty, the purpose of this blood-red bat on his chest, to hold feet to fire, make sure people get exactly what it is they deserve.

He'd thought he was playing it pretty cool, but just as he's gotten better at reading Grace she's gotten better at reading him, and ah, shit, he had said something about not getting along with his dad, hadn't he? Because Grace has turned to fully face Bruce, and she's stood up and drawn her shoulders back and Jason's half-hidden by the bulk of her tail and the curve of her thigh, and she's baring her teeth at Bruce like she's gearing up for a fight (even though she doesn't know karate). "Who're you?" she snaps, and it's a lucky stroke of luck that she doesn't semm recognise Bruce Wayne in the flesh.

Bruce doesn't clarify for her. "I'm Bruce," is all he says, not taking a step closer. "I'm Jason's, ah, guardian."

It's a little hysterical that that's the title Bruce's gone for, and it's not the one Jason (even in his perpetual anger) had assigned to him.

Grace doesn't look mollified, but she does look over to check on Jason. He pets her tail, and then gently pushes it away so that she can take her seat again. "Grace, it's fine. We're not on the best of terms, but you don't gotta bite his head off."

"I'm willing to try," she tells Bruce menacingly, even though Jason knows there's no way in hell she'd go for it.

"Perhaps later," Bruce says politely, taking a seat. "Can I know why you asked me to come here?"

"Yeah," Jason says. "Got 2 things to put by you. First thing's first; Grace here's in a bit of a tight spot, and I'm offering to help her out by lending her my credit card. Since it's technically yours, I thought she'd feel better if you gave her your blessing."

Bruce's lips go thin, but she doesn't know he's Bruce Wayne so he can look a little sour and a little cold and a little worried. "Jason, it's your card, it's your money. You don't need my permission to use it. But miss, if it makes you feel better, whatever Jason says is okay, is okay with me."

Grace still looks discomfited, massive tail twitching behind her. "Cool," she says, but she's looking at Jason.

"Cool," Jason echoes. "Two, Grace, Bruce here helps run a lot of non-profits. I need you to tell him your story, okay? From the kiddie camp at the aquarium, to the shit going wrong on the yacht, to the things that you had to do to survive after that. You can leave out things if you want, but if you can tell him all the things you told me, it'll help him figure out how to do better in the future."

She looks a little uncertain, and tries to murmur out the side of her mouth (extremely unsuccessfully). "Even the stuff with the, uh, creature of the night? And the, uh, legal stuff?"

Jason looks at Bruce, who's sharp enough to see the Shape of Things coming and is already gritting his teeth to bear it, and nods. "All of it, as much as you can manage, Grace".

And the main reason that Jason's here and Jason had called Bruce despite despite despite, is because even with all the things the man is so so so bad at, there isn't anyone on Earth so dedicated to holding their own feet to the fire, more invested in trying (and often failing) to atone for all his many, many wrongs.

So Grace tells her story, about too-little-money and too-many-hurts, gunshots and violence and sleeping in the cold dark ocean and being alone and being a criminal and being a no-longer-human struggling to remain a person, and Bruce goes paler and paler and his hands clench tighter and tighter, and Jason watches over all over this as he quietly sips at his limonada suiça.

(It goes on for well over an hour, with Bruce asking clarifying questions and taking notes in his phone. Getting things off her chest has Grace mellowing out enough to ask if Bruce wants to join them for lunch, but Bruce had shaken his head, handed off 6 different cards for 6 different people who can help with 6 of Grace's top 10 troubles, and gotten to his feet with a gentle excuse of having a meeting he can't avoid.

"It was good to make your acquaintance, and I hope you'll keep in touch," Bruce had said, shaking Grace's hand. "I'm sorry for all you've had to go through. I hope I can help make things easier for you, and anyone else that might share your circumstances."

And that had taken Jason aback a little, that Bruce had actually apologised, had taken in the enormity of his wrongs and then taken ownership of his faults. It happens more rarely than it should, but goddamn it feels good to have gotten this apology for Grace even if she'll never figure out the true heavy weight of it.

Bruce had looked like he'd wanted to say something to Jason, too, but Jason's too wrung out to want to hear it, and had kept his eyes firmly on the condensation rolling down his glass.

And then Bruce had said, "Thank you for calling me, Jason," and he'd sounded like he meant it, and then he'd left, and Jason had exhaled the heat in his head, and things are a little better now for all of them than they were before.

"He didn't scream even a little when he saw me," Grace had said admiringly. "I see where you get it from, Jason."

And if that ain't a compliment and a damning indictment all at once.)

They split up, after that, Grace saying that she wants some privacy as she works through the mess of things left in her wake, meet-ups and calls to friends and family. He imagines her going through door after door and hearing startled scream after startled scream, and it gives him a little bit of a headache. She's an adult, though, and if she's prepared to do this he'd be doing her a disservice to tail after her.

So instead Jason had gone home, fully ignored his phone exploding with texts from everyone bombarding him with pictures of him hanging out with Grace Orca, and taken a 10 hour nap. At some point, he think he dreamt that he was in the lily pond behind the Manor, swimming on his back like he's an otter and Sheila had been on top of him, like a baby otter, and the water had tasted of limonada suiça but was the colour of a sizzly electric green.

Grace had been running around on land, he thinks. Damian had been there too, inexplicably, like even in a dreamscape he'd heard the siren call of wild beasties, and they'd laughed loudly with each other, and then Grace had thrown him into the sky and he hadn't come back down, had stayed in the air like a sugar glider that's a stranger to gravity.

And then Sheila had rolled over and then gotten heavier and heavier on his chest, and Jason had kept going down and down into the lemonade-not-lemonade, and no one had seen him go down or maybe no one had cared, and he hadn't struggled and just kept sinking.

He'd woken up with drymouth and a faint desire to drink more lemonade. He'd also woken up and realised he's only ever seen Sheila in his dreams, and there's no text from Grace yet, and it's early out still (only 1 AM), and he feels a little unsettled in his skin. Easy enough to put on a good face for Grace, who for all her build is still a civvy, but in the quiet dark of his own home, Jason's feeling, ah, a little lonesome, a little cold. Sucks, that Red Hoods don't get a Red Hood to look out for 'em.

Instead of moping for too long, though, he takes a long hot shower, uses up every last drop that boiler has to spare, and dresses real nice and warm, replete with fluffy socks and a scarf around his neck. He grabs a beer and a couple of slices of 2-day-old pizza in foil, puts them into his shopping bag in case he wants to get more snacks on the way. He remembers, this time, and shapes and sharpens a bit of wire into the shape of a fishing hook to bring with him.

He's still, somehow, got squid on the brain.

Set and prepped, exhausted and a little cored out and a little light-headed, Jason heads off back to the primordial sea (Dock 3 at Newquay Harbour).

He gets there, has barely taken a seat with his feet in their fuzzy Christmas socks and Crocs(!) hanging over the side, when there's a splash! and a whump!. Jason turns, already halfway to smiling, and there's Grace, who's fully smiling.

"Hey, stranger," she says, cheerfulness bubbling up and out her blowhole (!!).

"Hey yourself," Jason says, relieved despite himself to see her in good spirits. "Someone's in a good mood."

"Someone's not." Grace is studying him rather intensely. "You okay? Anyone I need to bite?"

That does get a laugh out of him. "I'm gonna take you up on that offer one day, and you're really gonna regret it."

She flashes her teeth, and it's a promise and a half. "I have a phone now, so just call me anytime. Seriously, though. You're okay?"

Jason nods. "Yeah, man. Hearing about your stuff kindof reminded me of some of my stuff, and it's nothing new or super tragic or anything. I'm just a little worn out, which is pretty crazy, since you've been doing all the heavy lifting."

"Yeah, but I'm built for it, little guy." The joke doesn't land with Jason's mood the way that it is. She stares at him shrewdly, and then she continues. "I'm having drinks with some of the girls from the aquarium on Friday. They're gonna bring a bunch of stuff, and then we'll meet down on the beach for a picnic. You wanna come?"

Uhm. This is not going in the direction Jason was expecting. "Uh. Nice of you to invite me, but won't it be weird to have me over when you're reconnecting with your friends?"

Grace just stares at him. "Didn't let weirdness stop you from knocking down Pam and Harley's door at ass o'clock in the morning to introduce me to them, did it? Besides, you're pretty cool, for someone who isn't a marine biologist. I'm kinda easing back into, into regular friendships," into being a person again, she doesn't say, "that kind of thing. I wouldn't mind the moral support?"

What's a guy to do, even when he's pretty sure he's being manipulated? Jason nods helplessly, fondly. "I might have work, but text me a reminder and I'll try and swing by for a drink. That good?"

She beams at him, and what an experience it is, to be smiled at by this hallowed face, her pale underbelly glowing in the light pollution like a beacon. "Sounds great. And come in early on Friday, with a change of clothes, okay?"

"What for?" He frowns. "You need help with something?"

She shakes her marvelous, majestic head. "No. Maryam's a post-doc at the aquarium and her partner's working as part of the conservation trust managing the breeding harbour seal population like 2 hours north from here. The plan is to relocate Sheila so she's not at risk of being hit by a boat, and we're gonna need someone who can help with transporting her. I told Maryam that I knew a guy who knew a guy, but really I meant you."

Oh, my. Jason, unlike Grace, can turn red. Luckily the blustering winds already has him flushed, so maybe she can't tell. "How did we get to a point where you're the one doing me favours already?" he says, instead of saying no I don't want to help move Sheila, don't pity me. Because, well. It isn't pity, is it? Hadn't been pity when he saw her for the first time, either.

"Always been told I'm a quick learner," Grace says, and then she blinks audaciously at him, and on god she seems to have twice the number of eyelids than the average person, and this has Jason bursting into startled laughter so hard he almost rolls off the dock, and is only saved by Grace grabbing him round the shoulders, and she's so startled by it she'd started clicking at him, and this makes him laugh even harder, and he laughs so hard he almost cries, in the circle of the arms of an orca-person who should be a killer but is instead insanely tender-hearted about seals and sad lads alike.

(Turns out, the truth of it is;

If you look out for people, people will look out for you too).

a/n: super secret tumblr-limited author's note here. man this fic really took me places. i feel like i'm usually a lot more explicit about theming, and half wonder if jason's slump in mood near the end felt like it came out of nowhere, but i wanted to give him highs (this incredible man looking out for this killer lady) and also give him lows (who watches the watchman and he's afraid the answer is No One). i also worry i didn't give grace enough of a personality.... turns out i'd like to work on how to give people flavour even when they aren't the pov character!!

and i put in a bunch of references to other fics and it felt really self-indulgent but i think they work even if you've never read anything else from me and it for me felt like a victory lap... like oh, yeah, what a built-up lived-in gotham you've set up for yourself!!

anyways this has been the first fic in a long long time where i felt really relaxed about writing.... feels nice man.....

#whale writing #bruce wayne #jason todd #dcufans4palestine #this ended up running Real Long i'm really someone not built to be brief #nevertheless i hope you enjoy going on this very strange adventure over a 24 hour period with jason and grace!!

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