Subject: [OTL]: [Robin] In The Blood [3:11] Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 07:03:29 -0700 (PDT) From: D Benway In The Blood [3:11] Saturday, May 12 drawn from the vein by Benway This story borrows some Bat-characters from DC for not-for-profit use. This story is not recommended for sensitive or innocent readers. __________________________________________________________________ I can't stop thinking about it. Why wouldn't he tell me? I looked up the literature on divorce and found a paper that said wives who had children by sperm donors were more likely to divorce their husbands than wives who had children the usual way. After that, I found two more studies that said there was no difference. After reading through the research methodology, it was plain that no-one really knew anything about it. Still, I can't help thinking: does my father just want to believe that Dylan really is his son? If he tells me that I'm not his son, does that mean that he's giving me up for Dana and Dylan? Why did he even agree to it twice? Was it his way of making sure she wouldn't take off? The more I think about it, the more I keep getting uglier and uglier ideas. It wasn't supposed to be this way. I love Dana and I love my Dad, and I know she didn't just marry him for the money, but I don't know why she married someone old enough to be her dad. I phoned Steph and asked, but all she did was ask me why I wanted to know. I didn't tell her. She said I shouldn't worry about it as long as they're happy. She didn't say anything about me being happy. It isn't only my family that I keep thinking about. Since I think about them a lot, the name Dylan keeps running through my head, and it reminded me of another kid with that name: Dylan Erb. His name kept coming up when I first arrived at Brentwood. Was I his brother? His stepbrother? His cousin, perhaps? I'd never heard of him, and he'd been expelled three months before I arrived at the school. I looked him up in the old yearbooks. It could have been a picture of me. I think that he might be my halfbrother. I can't get into the Wayne Centre records over the net. Waynecorp handles their software security, and there's no way I'm getting in without using Bruce's equipment. If I do, Bruce will know what I've been up to, and I don't think I should tell him, not until I get the donor's name. After I check the guy out, I probably won't even go talk to him. I just want to get some idea of who he is. Then I'll tell Bruce and he'll chew me out, but he'll understand. He'll know where I'm coming from. I'm inside the Fertility Clinic of the Thomas Wayne Medical Centre. I went in through the ventilation system after I'd hacked into the security station and put their duct cameras onto a loop. The records aren't on paper, but are on microfiche. They aren't any better ordered than the electronic records at the Engler Clinic, and I have to hide in the ducts during two of the regular hourly foot patrols. I'm halfway to talking myself into going home when I find the records. My father was sterile. My mother was impregnated with sperm from a donor. There are no donor names, but I have a number for a file that I'm sure is locked inside the office vault. The vault proves to be a joke compared with what I had to go through to get into the clinic. I could have picked the lock with a paper clip, and there isn't even a camera inside. There is a handle on the inside, and I shut myself in just before the next foot patrol comes around. It takes me another hour and a half to go through the 50 or so filing cabinets before I find the donor list in the back of the bottom drawer of the second last one. It's a wire-bound notebook, with the title Seminar Duties, and someone thought they were being very clever by filling the first ten pages with who had to bring the cookies to two years worth of seminars on reproductive health. This is followed by 20 blank pages, but I can tell from the page edges where the action is. The records are brief and to the point. Each mother is named, along with her social security and medical file numbers. Each donor is named, along with his file number. The date of the procedure is given followed by either a check or some sort of code. I recognize some of the names. Someone with the same name as the Titans' bow and arrow man is matched to at least five successful pregnancies. The dates correspond to the time he was in his second rehab, two years before Lian was born. I find a Bullock, H. listed, but it stops being funny when I see King-Jones in the same line. I flip through to the page with a date nine months before my birthday on it, and my whole life goes to hell. Some of the entries are different here. Twenty of them, including my own, have no listing for the donor. Instead, there is a telephone number beginning with 947. Only internal Waynecorp phones use that prefix. I think I know who my real father is. Steph noticed. Back when we first met, three years ago, she told me I looked like a short Bruce Wayne when I was in disguise. Same hair, she said, same mouth, same ears. We both ended up rolling on the ground, laughing our guts out. It doesn't seem so funny, now. He has to know. Why wouldn't he tell me? Is this why he let me become Robin? I go back over the list and write down the names of all twenty mothers, as well as the phone number. One of names is Belinda Erb. When I was four, I wanted a brother so I wouldn't have to keep smiling and saying how good the oatmeal was that my Dad burned when my mom went away. I wanted a brother so I could tell someone how horrible it was, so I wouldn't have to keep it a secret. Now I've become very good at keeping secrets, and I think I have a brother, and the guy who burned the oatmeal isn't my dad. Twenty minutes later, I've put the files away, cleaned all the handles, and wiped up the tears that fell on the floor. It's not supposed to be like this. I'm halfway through my bedroom window when the man who isn't my father switches on the light. He's been sitting there with Dana in the dark for who knows how long, since it's 3:30. We have The Argument, again, but it's different this time. All the other times, I've begged, pleaded, been reasonable. This time, I don't give him an excuse at all, and tell him that it's none of his business. He tells me that it's his house, and so it is his business. I tell him I'm 18 and actually say that he's not the boss of me. Saying it makes me laugh, and he only gets angrier. He demands to know what I was doing. Making babies with Steph, I say. He goes to hit me. I block him hard, without even thinking. I hear a bone in his hand snap. They're both staring at me. He's bent over, cradling his right hand in his left. He turns to Dana. How could you tell him? he says. The thing I should say is, Tell him what? Instead, the mask is off and I stare back at him, letting him see what I'm feeling. You had to have the last word, he says to Dana. He storms down the steps. We hear the front door slam and an engine start. He leaves rubber on the street. Dylan starts crying and Dana goes to look after him. I take off in my car and sleep in a parking lot at the end of The Bristol Botanical Gardens that I know never gets patrolled. When I get back to Brentwood School, Alfred asks me why I'm back early. I make up an excuse. There's no way I'm letting Alfred in on this, not until I have evidence that Bruce Wayne is my real father. [next: Saturday, May 26]