Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Typically, a mer would return to the waters they’d been born in, during calving season. Parents bring calves back to where they, themselves had been born and teach them about their legacies. A place to meet with family that could help to protect and care for the new life. 

But Dick had been born in the cool waters of early spring, earlier than he was meant to be out, and his parents had worried about traveling so far in when he was so young. They did travel, slowly, and each year had been spent somewhere new, chasing the warm waters rather than risk taking him into the cold. 

Dick had grown up in the tropics, learning to mimic the bright fish they hunted, leaping after dolphins and then climbing up into low-hanging trees when they got irritated and tried to chase him back. 

He had never remembered the cold, not until his parents had deemed him old enough, healthy enough, to brave the cold, deep waters of his parent’s home regions. 

Gotham had been on the way, his father’s birthing ground, though they would not honor it. His parents did not tell him why. It was meant to be a quick stop, an obligatory introduction to the area before they moved on to the more luscious reef his mother always talked about. 

They had not made it to the reef. He didn’t even know where it was. 

Instead, there was the boat, the awful metal propellers that sliced through flesh like it was nothing, nets, and the harpoons that men threw with thick wire tethers. 

Dick wished that he could say that he didn’t remember what had happened, but that would be a lie. He wished that that was enough for his little animal brain to mark Gotham as abhorrent, as a place to be avoided at all costs. 

But he’d been nursed back to health in Gotham, too. He’d met the few humans he could confidently call friends, call family, in Gotham. 

He spent enough years, enough calving seasons, in Gotham that it was where his instincts had latched onto. Each year, no matter how far he went, he felt the call to return home. 
 
So it was the calving season, and Dick was back in Gotham against his better judgment, circling the water in front of the beach-side house he knew Bruce stayed in during the warmer months, for what little Gotham had that could be called a “beach” anyway.

It was impossible to ignore the little trinkets that littered the area, messy territory markers made by small hands under the guidance of a mer who had never stayed in a territory long enough to remember that they should be marked out. 

Jason’s touch was everywhere, and it still hurt. It had been a few years since they’d lost him, but lingering in what Dick still registered as Jason’s territory hurt. 

He sensed movement near the beach, the ungainly splashing of humans, a shriek that sounded like Tim, and the high clicks of what could only be a calf. A distressed one. 

Dick moved, heart in his throat as he rocketed through the water. He sensed the way that the humans tensed at his sudden appearance, melting out of his stealthier mode into a bright warning display as he scooped the calf in close against him, half his tentacles clutching at the calf to keep it secure as the others spread out to make him look bigger, warning a nasty sting or zap if they got too close. 

“Dick,” Bruce said, hands held up in a placating manner. Dick ignored him, checking over the tiny mer for signs of injury. It took the calf a minute to realize that Dick wasn’t a threat, its high, clicking squalls finally easing as Dick carefully raised them until their tiny head breached the surface, Dick’s tentacles still pulsing with bright, warning colors. 

“Why are they alone?” Dick hissed, backing further out of reach when Bruce took a tentative step forward, “They’re tiny, where is their dad?” Some mer formed life bonds and raised their calves together, but most females left the calf with the father after that first period of communal raising. Even if it was raised by a couple, the calf’s primary caretaker was always the father. 

Females were equipped to carry the calf and birth it, but everything after that was done by the males. 

Bruce looked awkward, uncomfortable, and Dick narrowed his eyes. “How long have they been separated from their parents?” He hissed, hugging the calf even closer as he considered the implications of a calf this small being left alone. 

“…He’s mine,” Bruce said, and Dick stared at him, nonplussed. “He’s what?” Dick asked, on the verge of disbelief because hybrids were basically a fucking myth. “Talia dropped him off a week ago,” Tim interjected, speaking for the first time. 

He had scratches across his arms, clearly left by a baby calf that hadn’t yet realized that the human wasn’t a predator. Bruce had some tiny scratches and bite marks littering his skin as well, mostly in stages of healing once the calf had probably recognized him as his sire. 

Dick looked down at the tiny calf, studying his dark tail and narrow green eyes so reminiscent of the orca mer. He could give her the benefit of the doubt, the calf was fairly healthy, so she’d probably tried to care for him herself, for a time at least, but if she’d decided to find a male to pawn him off on she could have at least searched for one that wasn’t human. 

Bruce might have taken Dick in after his parents had died and had done his best to make sure that Dick had everything he needed, but Dick had been long weaned by the time he’d come to Gotham. This calf was not. 

Bruce looked exhausted. No one was happy with the current predicament. 

Dick looked between Bruce and the calf still cradled carefully in Dick’s tentacles, suckers absently cleaning away any dirt that might have clung to the calf’s delicate skin. 

He had a sudden, ominous premonition. “Oh,” Dick said, staring down at the calf with new eyes “She expected me,” That made sense, it was something that Talia would consider logical. She couldn’t be bothered to track Dick down herself, but if Bruce already had the calf then there was no way that Dick could be expected to leave it without proper care. 

“Talia called him Damian,” Bruce said, still cautious despite the slow fade of Dick’s defensive display. “Damian,” Dick repeated, a little dazed “Okay,” he nodded to himself “Fuck, yeah, okay.” 

Bruce carefully waded closer, relaxing when Dick let him in close, fluttering tentacles wrapping around him in welcome “We’ll figure it out,” Bruce said, and Dick could only nod again. “Right,” Dick said, leaning against Bruce, soothed by the solid weight of him, the familiar taste of his skin against Dick’s suckers. 

They could manage this. They’d have to. 

Chapter Text

Dick sprawled out on his back, tentacles lazily swishing through the water to keep him steady as he cradled the calf against his chest. Dick cooed at the small mer, relaxing as the calf clicked back, nuzzling at Dick’s chest. Dick carefully redirected the calf’s searching mouth, letting him suckle at Dick’s fingers instead of gumming at the mer’s aching chest.

They’d been trying to keep him at least partially on human formula, unsure whether his dietary needs would be different from other calves his age. 

Unfortunately, the inconsistency was also confusing Dick’s body, which wasn’t sure how much milk it should be producing and left him either feeling overly full and achy, or not producing enough for the calf to feed on and making it so that Damian was continually suckling at Dick’s chest until it hurt. 

Dick pushed himself back towards the shoreline, sitting up slightly as he climbed the rocky beach until he could reach the back patio, meeting Bruce there as the man stepped out the sliding glass door holding a bottle of formula. Dick reached for it, knowing that Bruce would have done things perfectly but still taking the moment to test the warmth of the liquid against his wrist as he’d been taught. 

His tentacles coiled beneath him, letting him sit up as he cradled the calf in his arms, offering the bottle to Damian, who had gotten distracted chewing on a tentacle that had wandered too close to his little face. Dick carefully tugged the appendage away, wiggling the bottle slightly to gain the calf’s attention. 

Thankfully, Damian went for it easily, his little tail wriggling as he reached for the bottle with his chubby hands. Damian squealed as Dick guided the bottle to his mouth, making those shrill whistles that Dick was learning to read as excitement. 

It was. Difficult. Trying to raise a calf that was so different from him. Damian was a mammal, and not just in the way that Dick technically counted as a marine mammal. There was still a significant amount of Dick that was cephalopod before it was human(ish), but Damian was not only a marine mammal as a base, he was also half human and they were still figuring out what that meant for him. 

Mer of the same species could communicate easily with each other, even with the calves, because they were familiar with the sounds and body language, but Dick was not an orca, and he couldn’t understand what the calf was trying to communicate to him like he would have if Damian was anything like him. Hell, even orcas of different clans used different calls to communicate, so Dick had even less chance of deciphering whatever dialect Talia may have been teaching him. 

Dick had interacted with whales more than orcas; they tended to look at him as edible and he didn’t always feel like a fight (Unless it was Talia, Dick was always ready to throw down with that bitch, especially now). 

Bruce had had better luck with his internet research on orca behavior, trying to see how it translated to the little mer calf, but Bruce was human, so there was always going to be some nuance that he couldn’t appreciate. 

Some of Dick’s periphery tentacles had wandered over to wrap themselves around Bruce’s legs, clinging to the smooth material of his pants in a wordless bid for closeness. Bruce obliged him, reaching to stroke his fingers across Dick’s damp hair, brushing it out of his face. 

Dick smiled, flashing sharp teeth that would have made most humans shy away. Not his family, though. Never them. Bruce just smiled back, relaxed and content as Damian suckled loudly at the bottle.

Things were… stable. Ish. They were taking it day by day. So far Dick was… Managing. He wasn’t sure how big Damian’s lung capacity was, so he never knew how long to keep him below water while he slept, or if he would wake up and do it automatically. He didn’t want to risk it. 

Which made sleeping even more difficult than it already was with a fussy calf, since Dick didn’t want to accidentally drown him. So. Dick was generally cranky and had less patience and Bruce had definitely been on the wrong end of a few stinging barbs but at the end of the day Damian was as healthy as they could keep him, and that was what mattered. 

Dick didn’t particularly like sleeping above water, he wasn’t fond of having his skin dry out, but in the warm sun, with the calf quiet and happy in his arms, Dick found himself listing against Bruce, eyes closing as he resisted the urge to nod off. 

He jolted awake when Bruce reached for Damian, blinking rapidly as he processed what was happening. He was a little reluctant to pass the calf off, but wound up handing him over readily enough. 

“Get some rest,” Bruce said gently, “I’ll take care of him,” Dick hesitated, tentacles fidgeting restlessly as sense warred with instinct. Eventually Dick sagged, nodding in reluctant agreement “You’re right,” he sighed, sagging as he gave in “I won’t go far” he promised, stretching out his tired arms and glancing longingly at the water. 

“Go,” Bruce urged him, “I’ll let you know if we need anything,” Dick hesitated a moment longer before nodding, slinking back towards the water and the promise of blessed rest. It wasn’t like he was going to get much sleep that night, and if he was lucky he’d get the chance to go hunting before he was needed again, which was another thing that started to get a little difficult with a calf tagging along behind you. 

He drifted along the rocky shore, hearing the quiet splashes as Bruce followed behind him, intending to get Damian back in the water before he dried out too much. He trusted that Bruce could keep an eye on him, at least for a little while. 

Which meant that Dick could finally relax, at least for a little while, before he needed to return to care for their Bruce's calf.