Chapter Text
Bloody hell, is this it? Tim thinks as the water closes over his face. This can’t be all I get—
He fights, enough to break the surface once or twice, his throat stinging with salt spray as he chokes down air—but the heavy green cloak wraps around him like a net, and the sturdy boots that help him keep his balance on slippery decks only drag him down now that he’s in the water. The last time he makes it up far enough to catch a gasp of air, dragging the scarf wrapped around his face away with hands that feel like lead, he hears gunfire from the deck of the ship.
No help from Dick, then. By the time he takes down enough of the smugglers to pay attention to anything besides the fight, Tim will be long drowned.
Tim told them that this rumor about mermaids, or sirens, or whatever balderdash started flying around the waterfront this Season, is totally ridiculous. Pirates and smugglers always babble about mythical creatures, since they haven’t anything better to do outside of drinking their contraband. But Bruce wanted to be certain there wasn’t anything more factual behind it, and Dick and Tim were the ones sent to investigate while Bruce went off to make an appearance at the opera.
Tim will be very smug about being right once he’s not so busy choking to death on the dirty harbor water. Well, after that he probably won't care one way or the other.
But he was right. For the record.
Hopefully it will be a nice funeral.
Of course, his parents never even had one, so he might as well keep up the tradition…
This time, when he slips under, he can barely tell which way is up, let alone struggle back above the water. He’s too exhausted to move any more: the lights slip away as the cold claims him and his eyes slowly drift shut.
Then hands are cupping his numb face—warm hands even in the freezing water, each finger feeling bright against his cheek. As he stills in surprise, forgetting he was trying to swim, a warm mouth settles on his, lips curving perfectly to fit.
Tim gasps, rewarded with a small mouthful of air, and tries to push away the hands, but they only hold tighter, the water starting to surge and coil around Tim as the kiss deepens. His eyes fly open, but he can only make out a vague shape backlit by the soft moonlight scattering through the murky water. He blinks, ignoring the sting of salt, and finally he can just barely make out bright blue eyes gleaming through the veil of bubbles around Tim.
Naturally all this is impossible.
Mermaids, again, do not exist. Tim is obviously hallucinating from lack of oxygen, which is a perfectly rational and scientific response to drowning. Tim made Alfred explain the process of death by drowning very thoroughly after the letter came about his parents. Hallucinations and euphoria are a common symptom: Tim is too aware of what it means for the fantasy to be any comfort, but perhaps it did his parents some good after the pirates threw them over the rail.
He always felt guilty for being pleased they didn't want him to join them until they were settled in India. He hoped to put his own passage off as long as possible, until the letter came and he realized they were lost forever.
His voyage to join them will be a short one, at least.
The hands drift gently across his face. Even knowing it's a fantasy, Tim can't stop himself from leaning into the warmth, pressing into the kiss for the last phantom breath. He notes, rather unscientifically considering the dire circumstances, that the lips are firm and full, moving against his with almost passionate urgency as Tim gasps into them for more air.
Tim feels a few soft drifting curls brush across his face, a soft tug as one catches on one of the rivets in the mask and the—the whatever it is Tim's imagining pulls back in surprise.
The water swirls again as the hands trace in a light curious exploration over Tim's mask and through his hair. He tries to grab for the hands, but can't with the cloak binding him. The hands trail slowly down to his chest, leaving lingering streaks of heat even through the layers of waterlogged fabric, then push him sharply, the water catching him, trapping him, pulling him into the depths—of course even Tim's dying fantasy would not be kind, he thinks bitterly. That would be too impractical.
Then the water crashes down.
Tim slams into rock hard enough to leave him dazed, seeing stars that aren't from lack of air. He gasps, losing his last bit of breath, and expects a deadly lungful of filthy saltwater to follow. Instead there's…air. Cold, salt-stinging, smelling of fish and muck, but undeniably air.
He rolls over, slowly, feeling slick mossy rocks under his hands. The mask is nearly falling off his face, and he pushes it back into its proper place so he can actually see. Between painful coughs, Tim searches the water for the boat, but sees nothing.
As he sits up and starts trying to untangle the cloak, he thinks he sees a figure slip beneath the surface. Dark hair—or something—gleams under the moonlight as Tim squints through his dripping mask.
"Who are you?" he gasps out.
The moonlit shadow vanishes.
Then everything fades to black.
"Tim? Tim! Thank God, you're awake…"
Tim blinks and takes a cautious exploratory breath to see if the air is still there. Then he yelps as someone wraps him in a tight warm hug. “Dick?”
Dick clings tighter for a moment, then leans back, putting a hand against Tim's face where the warmth of the mystery hand still lingers. "Couldn't see you anywhere—thought you were gone—"
“So did I…” Tim looks around as Dick hugs him again.
He's not dead. He's breathing. He's on land, and he's alive, in Bruce's London townhouse, looking at the velvet hangings and elegant damask wallpaper of his own room.
Tim pushes Dick back for a moment so he can get more air and sees a dripping green sleeve. "’Faith, I'm ruining the sheets." He winces and reaches for the buttons of the Robin coat, which now smells heavily of waterfront muck and wet wool. "Alfred will have a fit—"
"Alfred will have nothing of the kind," says a voice from the doorway. "Alfred will be overjoyed that you are still among the living, Master Tim. Alfred will also take the liberty of informing Master Bruce."
Alfred sets the tea tray he’s carrying by the bed, makes a great show of fluffing the pillows, possibly so he can pretend there isn’t a tear in the corner of his eye, then retreats down the stairs.
Tim turns to Dick. "Is Bruce back so early? The opera wasn't supposed to end until after midnight…". He coughs, throat stinging with salt and who knows what else, and Dick stands to pour a cup of tea.
Dick is still wearing his midnight-blue Raven cloak, his wooden bird mask, near-twin to Tim’s in design, hanging around his neck by the leather laces. Normally their costume is firmly restricted to the basement of Wayne Manor, or the priest-hole in the Tudor era townhouse when they are in London. There will be quite the lecture about that from Bruce once he arrives, no doubt.
Dick hands him the tea, then pours another cup for himself. "It's past dawn, Tim," he says. For the first time it sinks in how bright the room is, and Tim glances over to see light pouring through the lace curtains. "We searched the waterfront for you half the night."
The warm tea soothes his raw throat as it slides down. Tim almost misses Dick's last few words. "...we?"
"Tim."
Tim can never get used to how silently Bruce can move—he thought he learned well in his stealth lessons, but Bruce appears in the doorway like a ghost. He is not in full costume as the Bat, but few would recognize the unshaved ruffian in the broad dark riding coat as the trim dandy who arrived at the opera earlier that evening. He must have rushed straight from the theatre to the waterfront with only the garb in his coach, and resorted to the rough disguise he uses when infiltrating the gangs of St. Giles for information.
"Bruce…I'm sorry, it's my fault they found us, I slipped muffling the chain—" he breaks off, coughing painfully, as Bruce crosses the room.
"Never mind that now." Bruce's hand hovers over Tim's damp hair, only just touching as he clears his throat awkwardly. "I thought…it's supposed to be Twa Corbies, Tim. It would ruin the rhyme to lose one of you."
A casual observer might think it a callous reaction to the near death of one's ward. But a casual observer would not be aware of the almost painful aversion to touch that had affected Bruce ever since he was found under his murdered parents in the wreckage of their coach, or of how difficult it is for him to frame his true feelings in words.
Tim smiles under the soft contact.
His parents barely ever touched him at all, and that was without any of Bruce's reasons.
After this, Alfred intervenes to ensure Tim is thoroughly dried out, decently dressed in the manner expected of the richest man in England's ward, and dosed with some horrible potion that he insists will stave off the ill effects of the harbor miasma.
Tim has his scientific doubts about miasma, but the medicine does seem potent enough to stave off an awful lot. Mainly vampires, from the amount of garlic. Once the butler is satisfied Tim is unlikely to drop dead from his exposure to the night air, the Bat and his Corbies reconvene in the second-best parlor of the townhouse to discuss the events of the evening.
“Do you remember anything of how you made it out of the water?” Bruce asks.
Tim shakes his head. “Nothing—sensible. A wave pushed me ashore. Then I collapsed. That…must be what happened. But I don’t remember swimming…”
“Tim, we looked for you for hours.” Dick’s voice is a little rough; he must have thought he and Bruce were on their second futile search for a drowned corpse. “You were three miles away.”
Tim nearly drops his tea. “Three miles?”
“Yes.” Bruce sets his teacup down deliberately and nudges a sketched map across the table. Pointing at an X marking the docks where Tim fell, he traces his finger slowly along the coast. “However you got there, you were moving against the current. So you can see why I am starting to think there is something to these rumours.”
"But there was nothing on the ship. Yes, I thought I saw…something," Tim admits grudgingly. "In the water. But I was also dying at the time, which is generally agreed to affect one's judgment. It was probably just seaweed."
Dick sighs as he reaches for a slice of toast. Thankfully he sounds less like he’s about to cry now. "Must you say it like that?" Tim shrugs. "Still, he is right about the ship, Bruce, they were only ordinary smugglers. Besides the crew there was nothing more dangerous on board than champagne."
Bruce's fingers tap thoughtfully on the wafer-thin porcelain cup. Tim has seen Bruce slam a man through an oaken pub table hard enough to turn the wood to splinters, yet he holds the translucent cup with exquisite delicacy, a strange wistful look on his face as he studies the painted roses—the tea service, Tim remembers Alfred saying, was part of the dowry Martha Wayne brought with her from Scotland. "I admit, it does feel a bit foolish, chasing after myths instead of pirates or press gangs. I would think nothing of these 'siren' rumours, if not for what happened tonight, and if one of my old friends from France were not taking an interest as well."
Dick's head snaps up. "What, Herve?" he mumbles around his mouthful of toast.
"Master Dick!"
Dick swallows. "Sorry, Alfred. Herve's in England?"
"Not Herve himself, worse luck, our two-faced foe would be too easy to find. But there's word his agents are looking, and he's not one to be taken in by a fantasy."
While Tim has never encountered him in person, he knows the name well. It was Herve Dente who laid the trap in France that nearly ended Bruce's career—and left him a Corbie short, until Tim revealed he knew the secret and took over the mask. "And not just him—the Bourbons and the Swedes as well. Perhaps even Ra’s, though who knows whose side he plays on now," Bruce growls.
Bruce is no disciple of the Terror, but nor is the Bat fond of empires or absolute monarchy. This is why he is hunted by the crown, rather than lauded.
After all, a gallant in a mask who politely confines himself to fighting those dastardly foreigners across the channel, like the Pimpernel or St-Germain or some of the other adventurers of the Revolution, is one thing. A very useful thing indeed: after all, no matter how well-meaning they might be, or whether or not they give permission, a memorable name can be taken advantage of to gin up support for an unpopular ruler and an interminable war.
But the Bat is as likely to swoop into His Majesty's prisons to free pamphleteers who protest His Majesty's justice, or free brutalized conscripts from Navy pressgangs, as he is to battle channel pirates or spirit victims away from the guillotines of France. As a tool of the throne of England, he is useless. As a man, he could not be more admirable—though Sir Jonathan Drake never held that opinion. He and Tim had endless fights over the breakfast table whenever there was an article on the Bat.
And Tim has never known Bruce to be taken in by mere legend. And after his own miraculous escape… "It's a lot of attention for a fantasy," he agrees. "But…sirens? Herve seems too logical to believe a story like that."
“Another night, I might have been too logical to believe you could drift unconscious three miles without drowning.”
“Fair point,” Tim agrees as Alfred pours him another cup of tea.
"Thus, siren or not, they are all certainly convinced they are looking for something. Perhaps not anything living at all: perhaps some curious kind of underwater vessel that caught you by mistake and pushed you ashore. That sort of thing would be very useful in a war."
Dick draws in a sharp breath. "They want to use it for a sea landing. Whatever it is."
"That, I am afraid, is the most likely reason.” Bruce sighs into his tea. “And whether it's Napoleon coming this way, or the princes going that way, or Ra’s going who bloody knows where, it will be a stupid, pointless slaughter all the same."
"Still, we need something more concrete than drunken smugglers rambling in a bar," Tim points out. He takes a sip of his tea, waits until Alfred's back is turned, then upturns the honeypot over it. Taking another sip, he sighs happily. "That's better. But we have to find the source of the information somehow, or we'll be boarding every smuggling ship in port, and that’s poor sport of us."
While the ship they boarded tonight was clearly happy to add murder to their crimes, most petty smugglers do no harm beyond breaking the ban on French goods or dodging high import rates. It's nothing anyone should swing for, and nothing the Bat usually interferes with. Even with the greater danger posed by a secret weapon, mass raids on smuggling ships would mean harming many who scarcely deserve the Bat’s ire.
Bruce's frown deepens as he stares into his own tea. Then he sets it down and pours in a thin ribbon of cream, stirring it in slowly and staring intently at the swirling patterns. Tim recognizes his thinking face and takes the opportunity for silence, sipping at his own tea with relief as the ache in his throat slowly eases.
He tries, once again, to remember what happened in a more rational manner. If he strains, he thinks he can almost remember a pair of eyes, gleaming with a strange deep blue…but most likely he’s imagining it out of sheer exhaustion. Though the warmth of the hands on his face still feels comfortingly real, even now.
Alfred returns with another tray and sets out a full honeypot and a bowl of sliced lemon. "Do spare a little for Master Dick this time, if you please?"
Dick looks between Alfred and Bruce, then grins playfully. "Oh, please sir, spare a bit of honey for a starving orphan, sir?" He broadens his accent until he sounds like any urchin selling matches on the street corner. "For Christmas we all split a single lump of sugar…me father, 'e saved three months for it—"
Alfred’s pride as a butler could never withstand a hungry young boy, even if he’s now far past twenty and well over Alfred’s height. Soon, as Alfred bustles back and forth to the pantry, Dick is sitting behind a pile of scones, jars of lemon jam and treacle, and peeled oranges. Tim rolls his eyes, but Dick hands him one of the oranges, so he decides this is not the morning to mention Dick was never technically starving in the streets. Traveling acrobats are hardly wealthy or respected members of society, so he's well earned the chance to revel in Bruce's generosity.
Dick takes a second orange and looks at the fourth chair at the table, half reaching out then wilting a little as he sees it empty.
Tim takes another guilty swallow of the too-sweet tea. Even before living with Bruce, he was never hungry: he can’t help the occasional feeling that he’s stolen a place from someone who needs it more. But Bruce looked so lost…
“Boys.”
Both of them snap to attention instantly, the game and the guilt forgotten.
“What’s the plan?” Tim says.
“Should I try the docks again?” Dick asks. “Could try to get a job unloading ships and see what they’re saying.”
With his street accent and easy manners, Dick can fit in almost anywhere, from dock laborers to dancing students. Tim doesn’t have nearly his knack for performance yet. His parents and tutors and schoolmasters spent so long beating etiquette into him (not always, but occasionally, literally) that outside of the Corbie garb it’s still difficult for him to present himself as anything but he is, someone born to wealth and title and then adopted into more wealth and a higher title.
"No, now that the Corbies have been seen at the waterfront any smugglers will be on their guard. But we must get to the bottom of this…” He stares into his tea again and sighs. “Nothing for it, then."
Alfred seems to materialize out of the ether behind Bruce’s chair, beaming. "Master Bruce, do you mean…?"
Bruce's broad shoulders actually droop a little. "Yes, Alfred. We're having a party."