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Chapter Text

The sand is warm beneath her toes as she slips off her shoes, leaving them beside her blanket and knapsack.

Her fingers trail through it, leaving behind nonsensical shapes while she watches the tide roll in, the midday sun reflecting off the water as it stretches out over the horizon. She sets her book down, one she’s careful to keep dry and free of sand, and rises to her feet. Gathering the skirt of her dress in her hands she steps to the water’s edge, digging her toes in and relishing the feeling. She makes her way to the small rock formation stretching out toward the sea, curved toward the lighthouse cliffs and one she’s camped out on to watch the sunset countless times.

Barbara picks her way across it carefully, the rock smooth and sun worn against her bare feet, and smiles softly to herself. She inhales the scent of salt and the sea, curls blowing into her eyes from the haphazard updo it had been pulled into before she’d ventured out to the beach.

Her father has long since given up on attempting to dissuade her, now used to sand trailing across her threshold, into the woodwork of the kitchen floor. Now, instead, he’s come to ask what sorts of treasures she’s come up with, what more she has to add to the collections of shells and sea glass strewn across shelves and bookcases.

In the distances, ships dot the horizon, and she reaches up to brush her hair away from her face, letting her gaze rove across the waves and splashes of color across them, the promises of stories and adventures she’s only ever read about. She drops her skirts, eyes closing as she spreads her arms out wide, welcoming the breeze and the familiar sense of freedom it brings. 

Barbara’s head tilts back and the sudden sound of movement catches her attention, a splash off to the side, and she opens her eyes, expecting to find fish milling about, instead finding a face staring back at her.

She startles, knocked off-balance with a gasp and pitches sideways, feet slipping against the smooth rock. Fingers grasp at empty air, and she barely has time before she’s falling in the water, slipping beneath the surface. The shock of it keeps her from registering for a second, and the current welcomes her by pulling her upward as she struggles to right herself. Her dress clings to her arms, her legs, twining around and restricting her movement. She curses to herself and kicks again.

An arm winds around her waist, and then they break the surface with a deep inhale for her, sputtering as she flails against the water for a moment.

“Easy now,” the voice of the arm tells her, gentle and melodic as her fingers scramble for purchase on one of the rocks closer to shore. They aid her as she boosts herself onto it, working to catch her breath as she seats herself on its edge and turns to face them.

A boy who looks about her age stares back at her, and her breath catches for another reason entirely. His eyes are bluer than the sea on the clearest day, just as calm and relieving, dark wet hair curling over them. His skin looks sun-kissed in a way hers never has, tanned instead of burned, left to pale with a smattering of freckles inked against her skin. 

But what she finds herself drawn to is his smile, the ease of it, and the grace with which he holds himself in the water. He makes no move to join her on the rock, instead treading water as he watches her collect herself.

“I—thank you,” she settles for, once her heart has calmed some and she’s pulled damp hair out of her eyes. He tilts his head at her, clearly amused, and she frowns.

“I’m sorry,” he says instead of you’re welcome or playing himself the hero. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

She huffs. “Well, you did. What are you doing out here anyway, swimming in the high tide? You’re going to get dragged out to sea yourself.”

If anything, his grin only grows.

“I don’t think that would be the worst thing. Besides, swimming out here brought me to you, didn’t it?”

Her face flushes, and she busies herself with gathering up her skirt in her hands and wringing water from it. “Oh yes, thank you for that,” she mutters drily, and she looks back to find him still treading water with an ease that would have exhausted a lesser man by now. A gleam beneath the surface catches her eye, and hers dart back to him. “You’re—”

“Charming? Devilishly handsome?” he cuts in, though his grin has adopted more of a nervous quality to it, not reaching his eyes. “The reason you didn’t drown? I could go on.”

Barbara swallows, and some of the light leaves his eyes as she makes to leave, dress bunched up in her hands.

“I have to go.”

She picks her way back to the beach, hurrying home and paying little heed to her current disposition, blanket and books gathered in her arms and skirts heavy with seawater and sand.

She returns the next day, pausing at the shoreline and watching the tide for any signs of movement. Her fingers clench in nervous jitters, her feet shifting in the sand as she waits in anticipation—whether it’s fear or excited curiosity she doesn’t know. She waits for what feels like hours, skirt fluttering in the breeze and loose hair falling around her face in an array. 

“Boy?” she calls out to the sea for lack of a better name. The only answer she receives is the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks and the cry of gulls. The existence of seafolk has only ever existed in stories, tales told by seamen upon returning home after long voyages, the sort her father used to dissuade her from when she was younger, lest she get nightmares. Such discouragement had not stopped her from seeking out every book she could get her hands on, however, delving into stories and devouring them entirely.

And yet those were only ever stories, fantasies, some cooked up by exhausted parents trying to keep their children in bed. She’d spent the better part of the evening prior trying to convince herself it was one of the local boys playing a trick, or something of her own imagination upon slipping into the water that was cooler than it let on.

But the feeling of his arm as he brought her to the surface had not been imaginary, nor had the eyes that had followed her even into her dreams.

Barbara watches the water’s edge.

She would not blame him for not returning, and as she goes to turn away she catches his voice from the waves.

“I didn’t expect to see you back,” he says, and she spots him lingering by the same rock he startled her off of the day before. He lacks his grin this time, his expression one of trepidation as he maintains his distance.

“I’m sorry,” she calls to him, watching his brow pucker. She chances a stop closer, into the damp sand where the water laps at her toes. “I didn’t mean to offend. I didn’t think you were real.”

At this he frowns, moving closer; he appears to glide through the water, and she finds herself caught by the desire to study, to know more, a trait her father often rolls his eyes at and says she’s too analytical, too nosy.

“Is the sun not real? The sand you stand on, the breath you take,” he says, pausing at the break in the sand where the water grows shallow and he appears to sit. Beneath the surface she catches a glimmer of gold. “I assure you, miss, I am very real.”

“Fine,” she says, though she still seeks out the logistics of everything, explanations. A grin, though sly, appears on his face as he leans on his palm, practically lounging in the water, sunning himself. She forces her gaze away from the sunlight reflecting in the droplets on his chest to his face.

“After all, miss, are you real?”

“Barbara,” she says, because she has had enough of the rest of the town using the title in snide tones; she will not have it used by a denizen of the sea. He raises an eyebrow at her. “My name is Barbara, not miss. And yes, I assure you I am rather real.”

He offers her a flash of teeth. “There you have it.”

Her head shakes, curls dancing across her shoulder. Real or not the grin of his frustrates her, and appears to be rather enjoying himself for it.

“Isn’t this the part where you introduce yourself, then?”

His expression clouds with thought before he schools it again, shifting in the waves. He’s a body of constant movement, and she digs her heels into the sand as the water comes up to her toes once more.

“Now why would I do a thing like that?” he asks and she folds her arms.

“Because it would be rather rude not to, don’t you think?”

“Mhm, yes, coming from the girl who told me I wasn’t real.” He laughs even as she bristles. Barbara is no girl, and has not been for a long time. A young woman, a good many have taken to referring to her as, sometimes not with the best connotations. A young woman her age should not be so stubborn, so headstrong; a woman her age ought to be married. She does not say as much to him. “Richard.”

She gathers a handful of her skirt and chances a step closer, the water up to her ankles, now.

“Hello, Richard.”

He leans and echoes: “Hello, Barbara.”

Sand sticks between her toes and she trails it across the threshold.

Against her better judgement, she goes to visit him the next day, and the next.

Her venturing to the sea is hardly news to her father, often under the guise of her escaping the eyes of the town and gone to read for a few hours. At most he tells her to be back by dusk, a concern more for his own sake than hers, she thinks. Even so, dinnertime is often spent skirting the subject of her romantic prospects, a notion Jim Gordon is as enthused about as she is, which is to say not at all. His latest person of interest appears to be this Jason Bard fellow, one of the newest constables taken under his wing, and Barbara would be lying if she said he hadn’t caught her interest once upon a time.

As she picks her way across the shore, having begged off joining Dinah in her shop, she elects not to think about Jason, or her father, or anyone who isn’t the man she has come to see purely out of scientific curiosity. Or rather, that’s how she ports it to herself.

Richard is hovering by the rock she fell from the first time, having learned by now to make his presence known, and offers a small wave as she approaches, easing her way across the foundation, warm against her toes.

“You came back,” he says, sounding almost surprised. This is the third time she’s come to see him now, their conversation growing from stifled and rudimentary, short-lived ones to finding a sense of ease. It’s the same as talking to anyone else, she muses, Richard listens with rapt attention while she tells him of her family life, of her town, pausing to fill in the gaps with the questions he asks. Yes, she resides with her father; no, her mother is not around; two of her closest friends are a woman who teaches between hunts and a florist.

“I did,” she says, bunching up her skirts to sit on her knees.

“I didn’t think you would.”

Perhaps it’s only her, but she swears there’s a wistful note to his voice.

She learns of his family, the sprawling mass of it, formed not in blood but bond. He tells her of his parents, lost in a netting incident, and his tone takes on a soft, hurt quality so she doesn’t push it. There are scars along his tail (what a strange thought, though she’s slowly warming up to it), silvery marks against the deep blue that’s almost black, standing out in a sharp contrast to the gold running down the side. She reaches a hand toward it, unthinking, and he regards her with trepidation before she snatches her hand back with a murmured apology.

“It’s alright,” he says, and then moves closer with the tide, slowly lifting the end of his tail, caudal fin breaching the surface and swaying in the air, golds melding into blue and the spines of it bending as it meets gravity. His smile is reassuring, though his eyes are apprehensive. 

Barbara reaches for him slowly, both of them keenly aware of her every move, and he stills as she runs her fingers along the edge where his tail meets his fin. It’s smoother than she would have expected, less scales and the texture almost like rubber, the surface glossy where the spines of the fin are rough. One of her fingers traces along a scar and he clicks once, softly. She smiles, laughing softly to herself, and Richard shakes his head, less tense, now.

“Interesting,” she muses, taking her hand back as his tail slips back into the water with barely a sound.

“Oh, really?” he drawls.

Barbara moves, shifting her legs as they begin to fall asleep from where they’re folded underneath her. Richard watches her as she moves to hang them over the edge of the rock, gathering her skirt in her lap and trailing her feet in the water. He watches her closer, still, as she flexes her toes.

“Now that’s utterly bizarre,” he says, reaching for her foot in a manner she decides is only fair. She curls them against his fingers and he scoffs, though he smiles still. His hands feel calloused, one smoothing along the base of her calf, circling her ankle, and she stifles a gasp as he repeats the motion, fingers ghosting along the damp skin. Richard doesn’t appear aware of it, too caught up in entertaining himself, and she has to withhold the urge to pull her foot back or squeal when he pinches one of her toes and wiggles it. “What is even the point of these?”

“To do this,” Barbara says, freeing her foot from his grasp and kicking at him, splashing water against his chest, and his laugh is a sound she’s never heard before and only wants to hear more of.

He has an adoptive father, he says, named Bruce, and a number of siblings he muses he’ll lose count of one day. He is the eldest, she learns, though he does not say how old he is, exactly. There is a hint of sadness as he mentions Jason, but then he tells her there is also Timothy, Damian, Duke, and Cassandra. He excitedly shares tales of misadventures, of trouble and chaos they’ve caused, all mirth and unbridled joy she cannot help but return.

Richard’s fingers loop around her ankle from where her feet trail in the water, thumb smoothing across the jut of bone. “Perhaps one day I’ll bring them to see you.”

She has to keep from reaching forward to brush hair from his eyes, to trail her fingers along his cheekbone. “Yes, perhaps.”

“Barbara, there’s someone here for you,” her father says, and Barbara looks up from where she’s been washing peaches for her next visit with Richard. There’s a gleam in his eye that makes her uneasy, and she dries her hands on her skirt, sidestepping the battered kitchen furniture to make for the door.

Part of her wishes she had not.

“Oh, Jason, hello,” she says, eyes widening for a moment as he stands before her, the threshold for once devoid of sand. Her father lingers in his chair in the living room, very pointedly pretending not to eavesdrop. Jason smiles at her and she finds herself returning it, though it doesn’t reach her eyes. “What brings you here?”

“I was hoping I could speak with you,” he returns, and she finds herself raising an arm to the doorjamb as if to block him out when he asks: “May I come inside?”

“No!” she blurts, only serving to catch the both of them off guard. Her father grunts and she quickly clears her throat. There’s a boy in the water waiting for her, seafolk demanding to know why he hasn’t taken her swimming yet, the very audacity of him. “No, I’m sorry. I meant… I was just heading out, actually.”

If anything, Jason’s face only brightens as he steps aside. “Then maybe I could join you?”

The first response that comes to mind is not overly kind, but Barbara doesn’t say that. She had been sweet on Jason once, before. He had accompanied her to lunches, lent her books he had no interest in but thought would catch her eye. He’d been sweet and kind, and Dinah had told her she could certainly do worse, but it had lacked a certain spark Barbara had hoped for.

So she only smiles, and he waits patiently as she goes to collect her things and bid her father farewell.

“No, I’m sorry,” she says, closing the door behind her. Jason looks fairly put out, but he masks it as she turns back to him and smiles, sheepish and apologetic. “I was actually on my way to the florist to get some work done. It isn’t a very exciting journey, I’m afraid.”

“Ah, at least let me accompany you there?”

He may be kind, but subtleties are not his strong suit. She holds back a scowl and shifts her book to her other arm when he offers her an elbow she doesn’t take.

The walk isn’t overly far, the conversation trite and one-sided, despite his pleasantries, and Dinah raises her eyebrows at her when she ducks into the shop. She only laughs as Barbara peaks out the window, harder still when she lets out a sigh.

“I see things are going remarkably well,” she says, waving a lily at her. Barbara only rolls her eyes.

Richard beams at her as she makes it to the beach.

Barbara rests on her belly on the rock as Richard—or Dick, as he’s told her she could call him, though she doesn’t—circles it, pausing at times to idle, or offer a quick twirl, shimmers of blues and golds catching the light. He’s telling her of a sea witch, Zatanna, who is nothing like the stories would have her believe, of spells and magics, sciences in their own right, when he catches her rifling through her knapsack and pauses as she removes a few peach slices from her pouch.

“What do you have there?” he asks, a story of a run-in with his youngest brother, Damian, trailing off as he edges closer. He comes close enough she can almost count his eyelashes and the water dripping from them. His head cocks, and she follows his gaze to the fruit left on the rock face.

“Do you not have peaches?” She figures she already knows her answer, and he nods thoughtfully.

“Ah, I see. I’ve…heard of them once or twice,” he muses. He trails an arm all the surface. “Fruit trees don’t fare very well underwater, I’m sorry to say.”

Barbara regards him curiously. “What is it you do eat then?”

“Mostly crab and dead pirates,” Richard says without missing a beat. When she looks up his face is impassive.

“Richard.”

“I’m joking,” he huffs. “Pirates are too gamey and smell like tobacco.”

Barbara rolls her eyes with a sigh and reaches for her peaches, holding up a slice in the space between them. “Would you care to try one then? Unfortunately I’m fresh out of crab.”

There’s a moment of consideration before he reaches for her, fingers long and elegant and nails sharp, and she remains still as they brush along hers. He hesitates for a moment before plucking it out of her grasp. She watches him scrutinize it a little closer before popping it into his mouth in its entirety.

Richard chews, expression thoughtful, and Barbara props her chin up with her hand as he ponders.

“Well?” she asks after he swallows, and he hums.

“It’s no dead pirate, I’ll give it that much.” He edges closer to the rock as if he wasn’t close enough to begin with. He cranes his neck and she nearly laughs.

“You can have some more, if you’d like.”

Barbara beams, just as he does, when he reaches over for another peach slice and sticks it between his teeth with a soft hum. She laughs, pushing herself up onto her knees. Richard picks through peaches and bobs along with the current, ebbing and flowing back and forth, closer to her and then away, and then closer again.

“Oh, you’re a fool, you know that?” He pauses in his ministrations to glance at her from the corner of his eye, and then the tip of his tail pops out of the surface to flick water at her, and he laughs at her startled squeal.

As she returns to the beach more and more, she finds fragmented bits of sea glass by her toes, blues and green glinting in the light as she slips off her shoes. They grew more frequent as the days progress, and Richard only smiles and shakes his head when she asks.

Around the fifth day she finally meets the one leaving her little gifts, and Cassandra offers her a shy wave when Barbara greets her.

Richard clicks, a sound Cassandra repeats, though quieter, and Barbara crouches down on her rock as she approaches her, glints of black in her fin trailing behind her. Her movements are slow, cautious, and as she holds out a clenched fist Barbara extends her palm only to have a broken sand dollar deposited in it.

She raises it to her face to study it, a smile pulling at her mouth, and looks up to find Cassandra gone as quickly as she’d appeared.

“I think she likes you,” Richard says, arms folded on the rock. His tail trails behind him, glimmers of color in the midday sun, fins long and membranous as they swirl beneath the surface.

Barbara hums, smoothing her thumb over the edge of the sand dollar before gently setting it with her knapsack. “I think you have some competition.”

She catches a flash of his teeth. “I suppose I’ll just have to try harder.”

Barbara brings her books to the beach with her still, mindful of the sand and saltwater, entertaining herself during the times Richard has yet to join her, or the times in between him departing her first (a rarity) and her returning home.

She traces her fingers along the grooves in the rock she sits upon, the gentle waves and breeze providing ambiance as she reads. She’s just finishing her chapter when there’s a ripple in the water, and Richard’s head then torso quickly follows. His face shifts as he sees her, smile wide and one she can’t help but to return.

“Good morning,” he hums, moving forward to hoist himself to the edge of her rock, arms folded over to rest his chin on his forearms. He glances to the book in her hands, the one she’d settled in her lap upon his arrival. “What do you have there?”

“A book—The Odyssey,” she says as he raises his eyebrows and makes to peer over the top of her book.

“May I see it?” he asks, and she thinks of the peach slices as the bottom of her knapsack.

“Ah, no; you’ll ruin it—the water,” she’s quick to add at the look on his face, the one that slips from affronted to a smirk and the beginnings of a laugh. “I—sorry.”

Richard only shakes his head. “No, no, you’re right.” His eyes dart back to the book. “What is it?”

Barbara tells him, watching him light up at the mention of seafaring adventures, the hint of disdain at that of war and bloodshed. She sits back and finds her gaze caught in his blue one for a moment.

“Do you know how to read?” she asks, blunt as can be, and Richard pushes himself up a little more. There is a sense of power to his arms, and she finds herself, not for the first time, drawn to the curve of the musculature in them, the cut of his jaw, and then she forces her gaze back to meet his as he raises it.

“Yes and no,” he says, throat working as he swallows. “We don’t have much use for a lot of books—the water, you know,” he parrots, and she finds herself longing to know more, what stories they have, the ones they’ll tell one another as history, folklore and memories passed down through generations.

She runs her fingers along the spine and then the cover of her book thoughtfully, watching the tip of his tail bob in and out of the water. It strikes her she’s never seen Richard in his entirety, only flashes of color and the parts of him that appear more human.

“I could teach you, if you want,” she offers, to which he makes a thoughtful sound and draws himself up onto his elbows, stomach against the rock and leaning. Barbara moves the book so he isn’t glancing at the cover upside down. His head tilts, a shock of dark hair moving with it, water dripping on the rock and across her knees. “Or I could read to you.”

His smile is just about blinding, and Barbara holds her breath as she notes just how close he is.

“I’d like that.”

“You seem distracted,” Dinah says to her one evening as they’re putting together another floral arrangement. Barbara only hums to her, finger running along the stem of the baby’s breath she holds. It’s been two weeks now, and she’d made no mention of Richard to anyone aside from the family cat, and even she had little interest in making conversation.

Dinah eyes her over the vase, bits of ribbon twined around her fingers. There’s a look in her eye Barbara has never been fond of being on the receiving end of. She flushes, body betraying her, and Dinah lets out a short laugh.

“Have you met someone, by any chance?” she asks, voice too forcibly cavalier. “Is it that Bard fellow?”

The look on her face must be answer enough, and Barbara hands her the baby’s breath along with some greenery.

“Jason? Heavens no. He and I… he only works with my father. I have no interest in him beyond that, and that’s hardly interest at all.” Which is… a lie, in part. Barbara had held some semblance of a fancy for him, at some point prior, some point long before Richard came along, but she’s hardly about to tell her father that. Dinah, on the other hand. “Can you keep a secret?”

She receives a grin and an excited little coo, and Dinah makes quick work of the last few flowers for the arrangement, her smile all teeth before she turns her full attention to her. Barbara hesitates, and then takes a breath.

To her credit, Dinah does not look on in abject horror, does not ridicule or chastise. True to her fashion, she only laughs and laughs and hinges on the finer details like the line of his jaw, the roundness of his nose, the color of his eyes. Dinah only laughs and smiles in that soft way of hers and takes Barbara’s wrist, and says of course, of course he’s seafolk, and she has to take her to meet him immediately.

Richard has his reservations, but eventually agrees to meet her friend with a furrow to his brow and a slow nod. In recompense, she tells him he ought to bring one of his siblings with him next time then, either Cassandra or perhaps Damian, if he feels so inclined.

Damian, as it turns out, is not quite a fan of Dinah, or herself, for that matter. He regards them with an air of disdain, electing to stay by his brother’s side, peeking at them from behind his arm as he gestures, and she’d think him shy were it not for the scowl.

“And you said they weren’t real,” Dinah chides, having gotten over her initial shock. Richard whoops, fins splashing in the water and nearly soaking them both. “All those stories you read, and you still hinge your beliefs on science and rules.”

“In my defense,” Barbara begins, dragging the tips of her fingers along the water. Richard’s own ghost near hers, close enough to brush. “Most of the stories of seafolk are tales of shipwrecks, as stories my father told me to keep me from venturing out to the beach alone or late at night.”

“And did they?”

Barbara raises her eyes from the water, iridescent as always, and raises them to meet Richard’s.

“No, they didn’t.”

She brings him fairy tales, to begin with, the sorts of stories he favors, can pick apart and tell her what’s real and what isn’t.

He’s particularly fond of tales of Robin Hood, she’s found, if the tight turn in the water and delighted cackle is any indication. He makes that clicking sound again and tells her he may bring his brothers along so that they might enjoy the story too, and she laughs and says yes, perhaps he should. He pauses in consideration and says it’s certainly something to think about.

Despite her curiosities, about him, about his life, and other seafolk and what else lies out there beneath the waves, though, there is a part of her that wants to keep this private, between them.

A few days prior Damian had wanted little to do with her, hissing between his teeth to Richard in a language she didn’t recognize, and he had only frowned, told him not to worry. At most Damian had acknowledged her name and greeting with a curt nod. He’d warmed up to her marginally at Richard’s prodding, and the mention of peach slices and stories.

“Tim,” he murmurs, rolling to lie on his back in the sea; his body moves with the tide, and she folds her arms where her knees are bent up toward her chest. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood sits on the blanket beside her, the loose cotton warm beneath her. “Tim would enjoy these stories, I think.”

The sun reflects off the water in a way that’s almost blinding, even with her back turned to it. Her skin has been darkening in the weeks since she began making her daily visits, reddening and burning, and he’d run his fingers along her forearm in a manner that left her skin cool and goosebumps rising along her arms. Color had crept up her neck and blossomed across her chest for a different reason entirely. If he’d noticed, he had said nothing about it.

“You all have remarkably human names,” she says, chin resting on her sunburnt arm. “It’s a bit strange.”

“Aren’t all names strange?” he muses, still on his back and eyes toward the sky. She can see where his torso meets his tail, tanned skin melding into gold at his sides, an array of blues beneath his navel, the same color as the sky; the sea as it transitions from midday to evening; the color of poppies and morning glories; the color of his eyes as they look back at her. “Words have no meanings until we attribute ones to them, and the same can be said for names. My name is Richard, and you wouldn’t find it strange to meet a man in town with the same, would you?”

“You’ve also told me to call you Dick,” she says into her sleeve, and Richard rolls onto his side, moving toward her.

“And yet you don’t,” he says and grasps the edge of the rock.

She considers flicking his knuckles.

“I am a seafolk with a human name, and you are a human with a human name. I know English, French, and the language of the sea, and still I don’t know how to read.” He inclines his head, and it takes her a moment for it to register before she gathers up her book and moves aside, enough to leave room for him to join her. It’s a fascinating sight, mostly because she’s never seen him out of the water, and she watches as he hoists himself up his arms and with a few careful, methodic movements he’s sitting beside her, all lean muscle and water streaming off his tail and back to the sea. Water drips from his dark hair, and as he situates himself she notices just how close he is, how she could reach out and touch him and hardly move a muscle, lean into his space and feel the cool, salty sea against his skin.

Her book rests in her lap and Richard cranes his neck toward it, clearly not as caught up in their proximity as she is.

“And so… you did offer to teach me, didn’t you?”

She can see just about every eyelash as he raises his gaze, and something passes through his as their shoulders brush.

“Yes,” she says, voice soft. The distance between them is the shortest it’s ever been in the weeks she’s known him, not counting their first meeting when he’d fished her out of the sea. She turns away and busies herself with opening Robin Hood back to the first page, and doesn’t catch whatever look he gives her, if he gives her one. “Yes, I did.”

He nods and dries his hands on the corner of her blanket, leaning into her as his right arm comes to rest behind her, keeping him propped up as his other hand reaches for the book. His touch is featherlight, barely enough to disturb the page, and runs the pad of his finger along the ink. Despite her nerves, she’s met with a sense of pride, and so they sit, heads bent together and her curls entwining with his as she reads and pauses, letting him sound words out. 

Richard pauses once to look at her, eyes slanted and expression contemplative. “You smell like peaches and ink.”

“I… thank you?” She frowns for a moment, processing; she thinks of all the books she brought for him, fruit juices smeared across his fingers before the sea washed them away. His head is bent, tips of his ears tinged pink, and she turns back to the book he’s diverted his attention to. 

They spend the better part of the hour reading tales of Sherwood Forest and Nottingham once more, and Barbara finds herself leaning against him without meaning to, his chest pressed against her back.

She stops reading entirely, and he trails off after a few moments, eyes turning to her she starts to pull away. There’s a knit to his brow, curls dried in the sun and eyes bright where they catch the light. He murmurs her name, a soft, gentle Barbara she can barely hear, quieter still as she leans in to kiss him. His lips are dry and taste like sea salt, the rest of him warm from the sun, and the arm at her back shifts.

“I’m sorry,” she says, pulling away, a flush spreading across the top of her chest. Her breath gathers at the Cupid’s bow of his lip, the tiny mole there she’d never seen before. She can feel the wide spread of his palm at the small of her back.

His lashes cast shadows across his cheekbones, free hand taking hold of the book where it slips from her grip. “Why are you sorry?”

“I’m not—I’m not sure,” she says, tongue darting out against her lip. The book moves to the space between them, what little there is, and Richard tentatively raises a hand to her face, palm cupping the curve of her jaw with his fingers slip into her locks. He gives her a moment, and then she settles on: “I’m not.”

Richard’s eyes flicker from one of hers to the other, and then he tilts his head to kiss her. An arm snakes between them, and he drops his arm momentarily so that she can tunnel her fingers in his salt and sun drenched hair. Her other hand smooths up the length of his chest. She’s all but flush against him and their noses brush as they move, interspersed with brief pauses for breath as they kiss.

Richard smiles against her mouth as she laughs, and she rests her forehead against his and his thumb grazes the skin behind her jaw.

Chapter Text

“This feels a little improper,” she says, twisting the material of her skirt in her hands. Richard circles the rock she’s standing on, humming to himself with a grin on his face.

“Barbara,” he chides. “I’m hardly one to discuss clothing with.” He’s beaming up at her from the water, watching as she toys with the fastenings of her dress. Two days have passed since she kissed him and they’ve been spent with continued readings, stories, and little ones stolen when she leans over the edge of the rock, or he in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the book. “But, if it soothes your worries… I’ll turn around.”

“Ha! How chivalrous.” There’s another moment of hesitation as she studies the back of Richard’s head, and then she’s stripping the outer layers of her dress until she’s left in her underclothes, feeling more bare around him than she has before. She sits, easing toward the lip of the rock as she plunges her feet and then her calves into the water.

“Besides, I’ve spent the past few weeks completely naked, and you’ve never batted an eye.” The sound she makes is an abrupt one, face turning the color of her hair, and he chances a glance back at her over his shoulder with a grin. “Of course, now her sense of decency kicks in.”

She rolls her eyes while he laughs to himself, and takes a breath before dropping herself in the water.

“Oh!” it comes out in a startled gasp, and Ricard twists back to her almost instantaneously, moving into her space. The water is cooler than expected, and she reaches over to grasp his forearm with one hand, the other clenched into a fist at her chest. She kicks at the water, waiting for the rest of her body to finish adjusting as Richard beams at her.

“It isn’t so bad—just give it a moment,” he says, and she gives him a look. The one he gives her in turn has clouded his eyes for a moment, his eyebrows drawing together. “I have an idea.”

Barbara raises an eyebrow at him, and then he’s reaching toward her in a manner that makes his intentions incredibly clear. She takes a breath and moves to meet him halfway, the tide shifting around them.

Her back is braced against the rock face, her hands burying themselves in his hair, fingers tunneling through the damp locks as he kisses her. She tilts her head, drawing him in, and his nose brushes hers as he moves.

“Richard,” she murmurs as he pulls back to let her breathe, water lapping at her chest as he holds her above the surface. His eyes shine as her breath collects in her throat, and then she exhales against his lip as he leans in again. An arm draws around her, his palm flat against the rock as one of her hands moves, arm looping over his shoulders.

She laughs as he pulls away with a murmur of her name, letting her tread water on her own as he lingers. Richard’s all teeth as he grins at her.

“Better?” he asks, which only makes her laugh harder. He trails his fingers against hers just below the surface. “Hmm, I think I should have taken you up on those reading lessons sooner.”

Barbara gives him a playful shove, though he barely moves. Instead he opts to seek out her hand again, giving her a tug toward him. She moves with the current, knocking against his chest, and his grin only grows. It’s a look so natural on his face she finds she can’t imagine him without it. 

They wade around the rocks for a few minutes, Barbara growing accustomed to the water and Richard doing intricate little loops, ducking into the water and rolling with the waves, flashes of tail and fin breaking the surface. She offers the occasional clap, and he bows into the water, dunking his head.

“Come with me,” he says, an excited smile in his voice, too. Long fingers loop around her wrist carefully. “There’s something I want to show you.”

Beyond him lies nothing but the open sea, a horizon beyond which she’s only ever read of, dreamed of, and while she is not without apprehension, she gives him a slow nod.

He swims parallel to the shore, leading her toward the cliff that houses the lighthouse, and beyond that to an inlet she’s never ventured to. Very rarely has she swam this much before, and just as an ache begins to set in to her thighs he pauses, glancing back to her.

“Take a deep breath,” he says, and then proceeds to lead her through an opening in the rock, her hand scrambling blindly for his as the light dims and her lungs begin to burn. After a moment it shifts again, sunlight streaming through the surface, and his hands are at her waist as he propels her toward it.

Hair and water is in her eyes as she breaks the surface, Richard following shortly after, and she turns her head to take in the scene before her. The cliff walls run high in the grotto, worn and smooth in some areas as they bend toward the small opening light passes through. A thin sandbar runs along the far wall, which Richard makes for and she follows him, her gaze still wandering the grotto as she takes in the light reflecting off the water and across the walls, and the collection of rocks and flora dotting the shore.

Barbara follows him where he comes to rest on the shore, wriggling against and leaving indents in the sand as she sits, her legs in the water and toes curling as it laps against them. Richard rests, propped up on his arm with his tail swaying in the water.

“This is beautiful,” she says, tilting her head to study the colors adorning the walls, the lines that run smooth and parallel with one another. “How did you find this?”

He hums, and a fin flutters in the sunlight. “I like to explore; I came across this a few days ago when I didn’t think you were going to show up.”

Her gaze cuts to him, scowling. He’d known she was going to be running late, caught in aiding Dinah with her latest order, and she’d already apologize profusely for it. He grunts, and Barbara watches him twist to reach for a rock not too far from him, and her fingers draw mindless shapes in the sand as he procures a bottle. She snorts when she sees it’s wine and his grin turns sheepish, the tips of his ears pink.

“Well you’re quite a romantic, aren’t you?”

Richard ducks his head, and she sits up a little more as he pushes himself off his elbow. It’s a sweet sentiment, she thinks, and her smile is soft, a small ache in her chest because no one has done something like for her before. A few drinks with Helena, Dinah, and maybe Zinda when she’s in town aren’t quite the same.

“Yeah, well, my brothers said if I insisted on seeing and wooing a human girl, the least I could do was woo her properly.”

Her eyebrows raise and he picks at the remnants of the label on the bottle, one that’s mostly washed away at this point. Damp hair clings to her neck, the color of her cheeks deepening and she lets out a small laugh.

“Is that what this is then?” she asks as he sits back up on his elbows. “Am I being wooed?”

She can feel his gaze roving over her features.

“I guess that depends on whether or not it’s working.” Barbara hums, and it turns into a laugh as he looks back and curses at the lack of wine glasses, and he chances a glance at her out of the corner of his eye before his teeth close over the cork. She blanches, about to ask him what exactly he plans on doing before it comes up with a pop and he spits it into his hand. “And I suppose we can pretend that wasn’t part of it.”

He holds the bottle out to her, which she takes and shakes her head at him. It’s messy and cavalier and surely not by the book, not at all, but she loves it all the more for it. She tips her head back, greeted by the bite of red wine, the heady scent of spices, something acidic and dry. She passes it back to Richard and he eyes it for a moment as if he hadn’t expected to drink it. Barbara flicks the bottle, breaking him from his revery, and he takes a drink of his own.

They pass the bottle between them for a while, long enough for it to wrap her body in a comfortable, warm state, a pleasant feeling as she stretches out in the sand, body long and languid and toes pruning in the water. Richard turns to prop the bottle between rocks, and she waits for him to lay out and settle himself in the sand before she moves to rest her head on his chest.

His body stills beneath her for a moment, skin smooth and air dried against her cheek, smelling like salt, and then his arm comes down around her side. It’s comfortable and welcoming, and she finds she could doze there, fall into a wonderful, dreamless sleep. She can feel Richard nosing at her crown, hair drying and coated with salt and sand.

He makes a contented sound, and she can feel him relaxing beneath her, tension bleeding from the muscle, and she can feel the erratic quality of his heartbeat under her heel of her palm where it rests on his chest.

They lie in silence, with only the sounds of even breathing, the waves rolling into the sand and his tail gently shifting through the water.

“I think my father means to send me away,” she says, breaking the peaceful quiet, soft voice sounding too loud to her ears in this cavern. His arm tightens around her, and she can feel him lift his head to look at her, though she doesn’t look at him. “I don’t want to, but I think he’s already come up with plans for me.”

“Why don’t you tell him you don’t want to?”

“Because we’ve already gone back and forth on it a number of times; he should know by now what I do and do not want.”

Richard hums. “You’re a remarkably headstrong person, Barbara. In all this time you’ve never struck me as someone who will do something they don’t want to.” She takes a breath, finger tracing one of the scars dotting his chest. “What do you want?”

She pauses for a moment, considering; she can feel her brow drawing together. Her toes curl into damp sand.

“Well, there’s always Ms. Isley in town who studies horticulture, or Mr. Nashton, and I’ve always enjoyed his word puzzles. Dr. Crane has always had a practice in chemistry and psychology, so I suppose that would be interesting to pursue.” His fingers pinch the skin between her elbow and forearm, and she lifts her head to scowl at him.

“That’s all fine and well, but I didn’t ask what the townspeople did,” Richard says, arm curled to rest his head on his free hand. “What do you want, Barbara?”

She looks at him for a good while and really, truly, thinks; aside from Helena, he is one of the first to ask. She nods into his chest.

“I want to travel, I want to see the world beyond stories. I want to collect them all and share them with my children and my children’s children, if that ever happens.” Barbara pauses, tongue darting out to wet her lip. “I want to see more of this world than this small corner, more than what someone else tells me there is.”

“There you are,” he says, with a note of satisfaction. It shifts to hesitation, and her hand smooths across his chest. “Are you… betrothed, Barbara?”

“There are few men who want to marry a headstrong woman who thinks and speaks for herself, and fewer still I’ve harbored any interest in.” Her voice is dry and she hardly resists the urge to roll her eyes, though he can’t see it. The question gives her pause, because it’s hardly a subject they’ve brought up before, and one he’s never asked.

“Ah,” he murmurs, fingers trailing along her arm.

Barbara raises her head to look at him, his gaze quickly cutting away and spots of color high on his cheeks. She watches him, the minute ticks in his expression and she pushes herself up on her elbow, the ends of still damp hair trailing along his shoulder. His throat works, and she flattens her palm against his chest, above his heartbeat, slightly off-center from hers.

“Why do you ask?” she murmurs, and his gaze fixates on a point beside her, the wall of the grotto, the glint of light as it shifts. “Do you think I would have come to see you, had I been? That I would have kissed you?”

His cheeks are pink to contrast his hair, and his eyes meet hers.

“I thought it was your scientific curiosity those first few times.”

Barbara shifts, lips puckered as she pulls a face. 

“At first, maybe, but then…” She pointedly trails off, and Richard raises his head, hand trailing along the sand as he moves his arm.

“And then?” His eyes are wide, deeper than the water lapping at her knees, tiny glimmers of hope where the light catches in them, and Barbara moves, her hair fanning out across his shoulders, tickling his nose and his ear. As she shifts his fingers glide to her back, along her spine, and she hovers over him, planting her hand in the sand beside his head.

“You asked me what I wanted,” she says and he tilts his chin up toward her. His voice is whisper soft as he murmurs I did, and softer still as she bends to kiss him. Fingers card through her hair, catching on sand and damp locks that have tangled themselves together. Richard raises his head, hand at the small of her back, pausing for a moment as she moves again. Her legs bracket either side of his waist, where the skin tapers into scales and splashes of color.

She cups his face with both hands as she kisses him, his own brushing strands from her face, tucking them behind her ear. His hands skirt along her arms and sides while hers map out the column of his throat and chest.

Richard’s grip tightens, and Barbara catches and loses her breath in the same moment as he shifts until her back is against the sand, his fins splashing about and leaving ripples in the pool. He ducks back down with increased fervor, sharp teeth dragging against her lip, and he’s greeted with a gasp as her fingers twine in the curls at the base of his skull.

“Barbara,” he gets out, his voice rough, raw in a way she’s heard it before. There’s that clicking sound again, one she hasn’t heard a while, not since she started reading to him, and he ducks his face into the juncture where her neck meets his shoulder. She can feel the sound reverberating down his throat, blossoming across her chest.

Her hands smooth along his arms, shoulders, and then his back down to where his dorsal fin melds into his spine. There’s a dull thunk in the water as he tail shifts, and his arms wind around her.

“Are you sniffing me?” Barbara asks after a few quiet moments, fingers pressing into the smooth skin of his back and leaving tiny spots of color that fade. His weight shifts above her, though he makes no move to let go.

“Like peaches and ink,” he says into her hair, and she can feel his shoulders shake as he laughs and she joins him.

“I suppose there are worse things to smell like.”

“Oh there are,” he muses, pulling back as her fingers curl into his hair again. He makes it a point to bump her nose with his own. “Trust me.”

“Like dead pirates?”

He hums, wriggling until his chin rests against her chest. “Like dead pirates. Nothing quite like the scent of tobacco and lost dreams.”

“I didn’t realize lost dreams smelled like anything,” Barbara mutters, and he leans into her touch as her fingers ghost across his cheek. He grins and nips at the pad of her thumb. His eyes bore back into hers, wide and bright, his palm splayed across her ribs. “You know, I never thought to ask you—how are you even breathing now?”

Richard tilts his head toward her hand as she draws it away, and she catches the beginnings of a scoff.

“Barbara, I don’t think I’ve been breathing for a long time.”

The laugh that burst from her is enough to jostle him, his chin digging into her sternum as his head falls back, and his elbows dig into the sand at her sides as he hovers about her. He sputters indignantly, though he still smiles, and Barbara continues laughing long after he ducks his head to kiss her again.

He stops her on the way back to shore, and she sputters as he plucks seaweed from her hair, laughing and swatting at him, though he leaves an arm around her waist. It drags the trip out that much more, and she only startles once when a fin caresses the side of her foot. Barbara shoves at him lightly while he guides them to the rock formation she’s begun to think of as her own. Wet fingers and pruned skin scramble for purchase, and she wrings salt water from her hair.

As she gathers her things he lingers, fingers trailing along grooves left by time and the sea. “Will you come back tomorrow?”

“And the next day, and the next,” she says, gathering up her dress, cotton left warm from sitting in the afternoon sun.

“I’ll bring the wine if you bring the peaches.”

Richard beams in the fading light, glints in the water as he splashes about with a tight little flip, always with the theatrics if only because it makes her laugh. Barbara pauses, slipping her dress over her head before getting to her knees. He swims closer.

“Hey.”

“Mhm, hello,” he murmurs, close enough she nearly goes cross eyed.

“I love you,” she whispers, like they’re sharing a secret, and Richard makes a clicking sound, practically chirping, splashing water across her knees as he surges forward. He nearly upends her, not for the first time, and she can feel his sharp teeth against her lip as he kisses her.

He speaks, not in a language she understands, but one she knows, a language of the sea, cultivated between the two of them, and one theirs alone.

Richard departs with a cheer, a whoop that echoes off the cliffs before he slips beneath the surface with another flourish of color and ripples. Barbara watches until long after he’s gone, and carefully picks her way back to the shore, smiling to herself all the while.

Barbara does not return the next day, or the next, or the one after that.

Instead, she sits at her father’s bedside, where he was moved after Dr. Crane had tended to him and his fever had broken. Jason comes to visit her, only once, and he’s turned away with words that are barbed and acerbic, and Dinah escorts him from her home. She brings her father the soup her mother used to make when she fell ill as a child, and the remnants of the bowls sit on the nightstand until it grows cold and congeals. 

She hadn’t caught the name of the man who’d hit him, only the scent of gunpowder, the tail end of a shrill cackle and the thud of wooden wheels against uneven stone. That is the sound that stands out in stark contrast to the rest, the one she could still hear as Ms. Isley’s hands closed over her upper arms to pull her away and Mr. Dent accessed her father. The scent of gunpowder had clung to him, and she’d watched them cart him away before Dinah arrived.

She sits with her father, her toes no longer pruned. The threshold sits clear of sand.

Dinah is one of the few visitors she allows, when she isn’t at her shop or living her own life, Helena still gone on her hunt and Zinda out with her. She mills about the kitchen, washing up plates from lunch while Barbara redresses her father’s bandage with gentle murmurings she can’t quite make out. Her father comes to with a twitch of his nose and small snort, to which she shushes him and tells him to go back to sleep, though he’s gotten a few days’ worth of bedrest already. 

“You haven’t gone to see that boy of yours, lately,” he says, voice gruff from lack of use, and he clears his throat. Barbara blanches and gapes at him before schooling her expression, though by then it’s already too late. “I’m your father, Barb; I’m not a fool.”

“I—” she starts, meaning to deflect before he gives her that meaningful look he sometimes does so she chews the inside of her cheek for a moment. He doesn’t look away from her, though he does raise an eyebrow. “I wasn’t sure if you’d approve.”

Her father hums and appears to think for a moment before settling on: “Does he make you happy?”

“Yes,” she says without a moment of hesitation, and his hand comes to rest over hers.

“Then that’s all that matters to me,” he says, voice gruff. “Besides, since when do you ask permission?”

He says it with a laugh, one she can’t help but return, and she revels in that mirth for the time being before telling him he should get some rest, that he’ll need his strength back if he wants to meet this boy of hers, as he calls him. Her father grunts at her before turning his face back into the pillow to doze, and Barbara gathers up the used bandages and the end of her skirt as she moves to join Dinah.

On the runner in the hallway, next to a worn copy of The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood there are a few broken sand dollars, and she forces her gaze away.

“How’s he feeling?” Dinah murmurs after she ducks into the kitchen, hand coming to rest on her arm. Barbara does not lean into her touch, but she does not pull away, either.

“He’ll be fine,” she says, voice forcibly level though her eyes betray her. Days of worry and lack of rest have taken its toll, and for a good few hours at a time she would not leave her father’s side for fear it would be the last chance she had to speak to him. The gunshot he sustained is healing nicely, all things considered, as are the numerous other scrapes and bruises he collected on his way to the ground.

Dinah tilts her head back in thought, gaze on the ceiling, and curls gather at her shoulders, though at least her expression is not one of pity. Out of the corner of her eye Barbara sees the vase she brought with her, freshly picked baby’s breath and gladiolus. Dried tuberoses sit on the shelf above her bed amid an array of sea glass.

Richard probably thinks she’s never coming back.

Of the three who knew of her secret little rendezvous, one had been bedridden for the better part of a week, and with her focus having been elsewhere Barbara hadn’t exactly had time to wander down to the beach on her own. When she wasn’t checking on the Gordons, Dinah had a job of her own.

Not having gone to see him comes with its own layers of guilt, because last they spoke she promised to come back, and it’s a promise she’s broken.

She wonders how many times Richard has come to the beach to look for her, how many times he’s waited, how many he hasn’t.

She wouldn’t blame him if it hadn’t come back, if he’d given up on waiting.

Memories of the last time she saw him are tainted, and that, perhaps, is what upsets her the most. It was the day she told him she loved him, and she’d picked her way back across the sand, to the pathway that led back into town and the excited thrum in her chest had come to a skittering halt. Instead, she’d come to find blood staining the hem of her dress and the palms of her hands while Victoria Vale yelled thief, then yelled murderer.

The first night after they’d brought her father home she’d fallen into a sleep riddled with dreams of saltwater and underwater caverns she’d never seen.

Dinah meets her gaze again in the quiet of the small kitchen, a look of contrition marring her features.

“I have to head out for a minute,” Dinah says, dropping her hands; Barbara shifts her gaze from where she’s been eyeing the worn copy of Robin Hood that carries the scent of salt and peaches. “I’ll be back soon, though.”

She regards her curiously for a moment, brushing her hair away from her eyes. Having some time alone would do her well, though, she thinks. She’s had enough of people hovering around her to last for a lifetime, hands fluttering like they expect her to fall to pieces, as if she’s fragile and made of the sea glass she so adamantly collects.

“Take your time,” she tells Dinah, to which she nods, gathering up her scarf as she ducks out the door.

There are traces of sand on the front step.

Fruit juices collect in the palm of her hand, and Barbara watches them spread through the lines before wiping them on her handkerchief. Dinah’s been gone for hours now, long past Barbara expecting her to return now, nearing late afternoon. She sits in the back garden on one of the benches, among the flowers and plants she’d so painstakingly cultivated over the years, some having fallen to the wayside since her beach going endeavors, though if her father noticed he never said anything. 

A peach in one hand and book in the other, Barbara decides this is a fine way to spend the evening, then. The sea can be heard, though at a distance she’s not quite fond of, and seen if she angles herself just right, peering between the two shrubs at the far end, as she is now. She cuts another slice of peach.

“Barbara!” Dinah yells, and she flinches, nearly nicking her thumb when it’s followed by a shrill whistle. She curses softly and sets the knife down before taking a breath.

“Back here!” With a quick glance over her shoulder she doesn’t spot her, and so she shrugs and goes back to the task at hand. She doesn’t get overly far.

“Barbara.”

She turns, and it’s like being plunged into the sea all over again, caught in the tumultuous current until she can’t tell right side up from down, her breath caught in her lungs. Richard stares back at her, eyes wide and bright as ever, and she wonders if this is perhaps another fever dream, another memory coming to haunt her, and his sleeves snag on the gate.

Barbara moves to stand, murmuring his name in shock, reverence, and an entire combination of emotion she has no words for.

He stumbles toward her once, then twice, though stone and dirt and kicking up grasses in his haste. Her mind is still working to fully comprehend the scene before her, and then he’s knocking her back, on his knees and her book and peach and knife are all clattering to the ground.

Richard engulfs her, practically smothering her as he covers her body with his, his arms winding around her to pull her closer still. Her fingers run along his sides, his back, pressing into the skin. A laugh catches in the back of her throat, the lightest she’s felt in days, and his face is buried in her hair.

“I thought you’d left,” he murmurs, pulling back enough to allow her to sit up. Barbara grasps at him still, one arm over his shoulders and her other hand falling to grip his forearm as his hand sits at her waist. 

“I wouldn’t,” she says, and her vision blurs as she blinks, smiling brightly at him as a palm cups her cheek. His thumb smooths through a tear track. “I would never. I—how are you—?”

“Do you know how long it takes to convince a sea witch?” Dinah offers, sounding put out though she’s smiling. Richard laughs and ducks his head, bangs tickling Barbara’s forehead. She scoffs, though she makes no move to let go of him even as she ducks her head to seek out his gaze, one eyebrow raised while Dinah laughs behind them.

“A sea witch?”

He nods and then raises his gaze to meet hers again. “You remember Zatanna, don’t you?”

It takes her a moment but she does, a memory mixed with lunch and sharing secrets, and as she looks into his eyes, holds him after weeks, she can only shake her head. The very idea makes her want to laugh, a nervous energy building up in her chest because oh Richard, you fool, you beautiful fool.

“You didn’t.” Her breath gathers at his chin, and she blinks at the tears collecting in the corners of her eyes. There are hints of trepidation in his, as if there’s a part of him waiting for her to cast him back out to sea, to turn him away, and her arm only tightens around his shoulders.

“I did,” he says, with more conviction that she’s ever heard from him before; his hands trail along her arms, her sides like muscle memory, and the thought makes her chest ache. “Besides, she owed me a favor.”

“Speaking of which, you owe me one for convincing him to put some pants on,” Dinah cuts in, and Barbara laughs while Richard pulls a face. His clothes don’t fit him properly, clearly borrowed, though she’s almost afraid to ask where Dinah found them. The shirt is wide, sleeves billowing like that of a tent and the v of his collar almost reaching down to his navel. She chances a glance over her shoulder, and finds Dinah winking at her. “And you are both very welcome.”

She doesn’t pay much heed to Dinah after that, though she can’t imagine she minds all that much. Richard’s forehead presses against hers, his hands settling at her waist, and she lets go of his shoulders to cup his jaw.

“After you mentioned your father’s plans I thought you’d left,” he murmurs, breath catching against the swell of her lip. He smells of salt and the crispness of ocean air. “I wouldn’t have blamed you, I just…”

“Richard,” she says, thumbs at his chin as he follows them and tilts his head. “I already told you what I wanted.”

Not for the first time, his gaze flickers from one of her eyes to the other. There are small shadows of doubt in them, lingering concerns that still persist after everything, and she means to chase them all away.

“Yes?” he asks, voice quiet.

“Yes,” she responds in kind, and she’s still smiling as she kisses him, and he as he kisses her back.

Her father meets Richard in the back garden, where the two at least have enough decency to keep their hands to themselves for the most part, especially considering she concerns herself with fussing over him and getting him to sit. He attempts to wave her off and shakes Richard’s hand, saying he’s taller than he expected, and Barbara and Dinah exchange a look while Richard fidgets. She likes to think he takes things remarkably well, considering, and after some stilted conversation asks if he plans to join them for dinner, and then if he eats dinner, and Barbara heads it off at the pass when she senses dangerous territory approaching.

“I have a boat for us,” he says, which catches both of them off guard. Dinah only plays coy until her attention shifts back to Richard, and he shuffles, unfamiliar with the balance of his weight, and he glances down to where he digs his toes into the earth before looking back up at her with a hint of teeth and gleam in his eye. “You said you’ve always wanted to travel, didn’t you? And I figured with the sea… we could always return and there’s so much out there… if you would prefer not to…”

“Hell no,” Dinah cuts in, wagging a finger at him. Her father sits on the bench, watching events transpire with a frown while Barbara folds her arms. “I didn’t spend a week dragging you out of the ocean and helping you track one down just for you to back out at the last second.” She pokes Richard in the shoulder, and Barbara’s face crumples into the beginnings of a laugh when she flinches away from her. “You are going to put those legs to use and go sailing or I’m tossing you back in the ocean.”

Even her father chuckles when Richard murmurs that he likes Dinah, even if he finds her a little off-putting. Barbara only winds an arm around his waist and says good, just wait until he meets Helena and Zinda, though come on, let her see this boat Dinah procured and gave him credit for.

His hand is warm in hers and her father grunts and says well, he seems nice enough, though he smiles as he says it.

Richard is adamant she meet his family as well, in full this time, and she chides him when he jokes about falling in again as they make their way out to their rock. Their feet trail through the water as Cassandra approaches them first, followed shortly thereafter by Damian. Tim and Duke linger, though she finds them friendly enough. Bruce is impassive at first, a stern mass of seafolk with a hard look in his eye, but his smile is pleasant as he greets her, and Cassandra presses another sand dollar into her hand in exchange for slices of fruit.

They sit for hours, the others alternating between showing off tricks while Bruce watches with the occasional commentary. Damian sticks beside his brother, and the hand that isn’t holding Barbara’s cards through his hair. His look is one of hurt, longing, and Richard bends to tell him something she can’t hear, and, again, makes that clicking noise of his. It must soothe Damian’s nerves somewhat, as it does hers, and Richard leans back toward her, pressing a kiss to her temple.

As the sun begins to set they make their way back toward the shore, pausing every few steps for another wave, another remark, a laugh that turns into a sputter as the children take turns pushing one another beneath the surface. Barbara collects their blankets and the peach pits, and turns to find Richard looking back out over the horizon, wind and salt caught in his hair. 

For a moment she wonders if they’ve made the right decision, if this is what they both want, but then Richard turns to her, smiling as wide as ever, and it makes her chest ache for another reason entirely.

He offers her his elbow, and she takes it as he leads her home.

FIN.