Resolution
The next morning, I dawdled in my room and was the last to breakfast, in time to hear Deri discuss how she and Van were going to a party the Scouts were having for New Years Eve. Several troops were going to the zoo in Central Park, then have lunch, then play games in the park, followed by a bonfire and dinner. Alan was going to pick them up and Deri was going to sleep over at Van's. I was really glad, hearing Deri talk, that she'd been able to patch things up with her friend.
"Dick wants to stop by today to talk to you, Imogen," Dad said casually. "You available a little later?" She nodded.
"Must be an update on my foster father," she suggested.
"I don't know, actually," Dad said. "He just said he needed to talk to you." And the conversation moved on. I was going in to work for two hours later, and I hoped that Uncle Dick came by before I had to go. Deri rushed through breakfast to get ready for an outing with Van and their other friends, skating at Rockefeller Center, and Mom went to work. Imogen went upstairs, she had forgotten to notify the post office of her change of address, and Home Depot was going to mail her final check.
"OK, Lys," Dad said. "What's up?" There was no point in being innocent, he almost always knew when I was trying to hide something. Besides, the cat was getting ready to exit the bag.
"So Imogen finally came around to the idea of seeing if her dad was in the paternity database," I said, and he nodded. He'd also urged her to find out but hadn't pushed when she was resistant and explained what her objections were. "So I just said that I could get it run and compared through a backdoor." I looked at the floor briefly and back up.
"I should have thought that myself. There are advantages to being one of those Waynes, cupcake," he said, and I was forced to nod.
"So I did it last night. Grandpa Bruce surprised me, said everything was quiet. He was there when the match came up, and brought Uncle Richard into it." Dad's face was serious.
"Who is it?" he asked, and I could see him making preliminary plans to deal with an undesirable dad.
"Uncle Richard."
"What?" I nodded.
"There was apparently a brief period where he and Aunt Barbara were broken up, it's the only time he could think that her mom could have gotten his DNA. He didn't know. He was going to go tell Aunt Barbara and his kids, then come back out here."
"I'd kind of expect that from Bruce, not Dick," he said. "I'll call Bruce. Will you be around this morning, honey?"
"Until eleven, then I have to go to work. I hope Uncle Richard is prompt. I want to support Imogen." I was worried.
"I think that for something like this, he will be." He quickly finished his breakfast and hopped up, headed for his office. I ate slowly. So slowly that I was just finishing my last piece of bacon when I heard voices out in the foyer. I crammed the bacon into my mouth and went out to see Alan going upstairs and that Aunt Barbara was with Uncle Richard and Grandpa Damian. I blinked. The big gun was here. Grandpa Damian had been in a similar situation when his mom had dumped him on his dad. Aunt Barbara looked interested and a little worried, but not like she wanted to beat her husband to death, so that was good. She gave me a little hug and I invited everybody into the library. Dad came in, giving Uncle Richard a hug for morale, I guess. So there was desultory conversation until Imogen arrived, looking around with apprehension. I went over and took her hand, tugging her over to the sofa where we sat down.
"I told you that I'd do the DNA, which I did last night. The results came back really fast," I said.
"Lys didn't know that I'd be notified if she used that process," Uncle Richard said. "She reminded me of your reasoning, because of the identity of the match. I took over. I realize that you would want the decision to be yours, and I have to apologize, because I took it out of her hands." Imogen's hand tightened on mine. "It turns out that I am your father." Her face went blank.
For a wild moment, it was like I was witnessing a real life Empire Strikes Back drama.
Uncle Richard explained, and it was what I'd heard the night before. It was modified slightly, however, leaving out his identity as Nightwing and relying just on his job as a police officer to explain his connection with Tarantula.
"I can kind of relate, Imogen," Grandpa said. "My mom dumped me off here when I was about ten, my dad had no idea. So if you want to talk, I'm happy to share experiences and give you my perspective. Dick's my brother, and I am somewhat partial to him, but I can assure you that he's a good man."
"This was a surprise to all of us," Aunt Barbara said. "But I want you to understand that you're a welcome part of our family. You have an older brother and sister, they're in college, but they're home for the break and want to meet you when you're ready. It's a lot to take in."
"I think that there's no need to rush anything here," Dad said. "Imogen, I want to reiterate that you're welcome to stay here as long as you want, just as before. I urge you to stay here, in fact, while you get things sorted out, get to know your family. This has got to be a huge shock."
"Nobody's going to make you do anything," Uncle Richard said. It didn't look like he'd slept much, judging from the bags under his eyes. "I would, however, like the opportunity to get to know you, and for you to get to know your family." I grimaced a bit as Imogen squoze my hand hard.
"I didn't expect this," she said quietly. "I knew that Mom had been a villain, it was in her letter. I just kind of expected somebody like her. Could we talk, just the two of us?"
"Of course," Uncle Richard said. I got up, patted her shoulder, and herded everybody else out, closing the doors behind us.
"What a day already," Grandpa said as we stood in the foyer. "Poor kid, having everybody know when she didn't. But she's better off with us." He brightened. "I have a new niece, that's nice."
"Are you ok, Aunt Barbara?" I asked anxiously.
"Yes, dear. I never liked Catalina, and I really don't like her now that I know this." She sighed. "It's not possible, even now, to create a viable embryo without an egg and sperm, so that means that she took advantage of Dick in some way when he was very vulnerable and couldn't say no. He said he never had sex with her and there's only that one incident where he's missing time." She shook her head. "But Imogen is blameless in this, and she's my stepdaughter. It would be nice to have a kid around the house," she said wistfully.
"This simplifies things," Dad said. "I like Lys's pod a lot, so last week I contacted Tony to order one for myself." He looked abashed, and I smiled. "I was going to offer my old one to Imogen while she's with us so that she doesn't have to feel like a burden coming in and out here. But since she's family, we can get her a new one."
"Dad, stop," I said immediately. "She's still deciding what she wants to do. Don't pressure her like that." He looked surprised.
"I think Lys is right," Aunt Barbara said. "Let's just take it easy here, with little careful steps. I appreciate your offer, Daniel, and we can talk about that later, but we don't want her to be overwhelmed and feel like we're trying to buy her affection."
"Ah," Dad said.
"If you offered to loan it to her, though, that might be ok," I said, and he nodded. I had to get ready for work, and the library doors were still shut when I came back down. I said my goodbyes, and set off, glad that it was a short shift, and guiltily glad to get some space from the drama. Especially since I hadn't been able to give Imogen a choice like I'd said I would. After that, a short session in Uncle Steve's workroom where one of the ladies showed me how to put in a zipper and went over the order of construction with me. I would do the sewing, then come back when the slacks were ready for the fitting and hemming. Then, fresh out of excuses, I went home.
All the pods were gone when I arrived home, and I went inside with trepidation. Nobody was in the library, so I went upstairs. Imogen was in Deri's room, and Deri was telling her about skating and all. Imogen looked pretty relaxed, if a little worn out. I guess Imogen hadn't told her about being long lost cousins. After a bit Imogen and I went to my room when Deri started texting.
"So..." I said uncertainly. "How did it go?"
"It's a lot to take in," she said, and I nodded. "I'll be staying here a little longer. I'm going over to their place for dinner, meet my half- sister and brother. If it all goes well, in a few days I'll move in with them." She smiled a little. "It's in the city, so that will be nice." I smiled too. Then she went to get ready; she was going to meet Aunt Barbara at the library and go home with her, then somebody would bring her back here.
At dinner, Dad brought Deri into the loop, and she was excited to have a new cousin and had to be talked into restraining her enthusiasm a bit, being reminded that it was a hard time for Imogen. We talked about other things, including New Years Eve plans. Our parents were going to a party, Deri had her Scout thing, and I didn't have plans. Maybe I should try to find something to do myself.
When I got back to my room after coffee, my communicator was blowing up; Imogen had told everybody what happened. We had a group chat, minus Imogen, who was still at Uncle Richard's, and I explained the public version of events. "I feel really bad that I wasn't able to give her the information first," I said nervously. "I didn't know that anybody would find out about the request. I probably should have." I'd have been ok if Grandpa Bruce hadn't come back early, but I couldn't explain that. It wasn't like Dad had been upset that I'd used the bat computer.
"Come on, you still did her a big favor, and you found her father, who's a decent guy. She's got a ready-made family," Nix said. "That's a lot better than being in the system with nobody to rely on."
"It's not like she had a lot of options," Justine pointed out. "Yours was the best way, even if it didn't turn out to be perfect." There was discussion and they seemed happy that she had a promising situation. We thought it was likely that it might be a bumpy ride for her, first with her foster father hitting her, then finding out that she did have a family. It was a lot to take in, and we talked about how we could support her. Fortunately, school started up again in five days, and it was reassuring to have that normalcy, the comfort of routine. We also talked about New Years Eve; options were rather limited for minors and it was scheduled to be below zero, so we didn't want to do Times Square with the ball drop. We wanted to do something fun, though, and thought about maybe dinner (if we could get a reservation someplace) and a movie. Ari offered to check restaurants.
I didn't know when Imogen got back; she must have gone right to her room. I wanted to respect the turmoil she must have felt.
The next day, our schedules were out; there were some changes to mine. One of the teachers had quit unexpectedly and there was some juggling around. My chemistry and history were changed, and I had a different teacher for pre-calculus. Too bad that I wouldn't have chemistry with Imogen anymore, unless she got switched too. There were emails about that too; Nix and Ari also had schedule changes and we compared our new schedules. It turned out that I was in the same Honors English class with Nix, and Ari had been switched to my Comparative Religions class. That would be nice.
Imogen went into the city with the parents to start her job, a half-day today, then she'd meet up with Joy and Ethan, Uncle Richard's kids, spend the afternoon with them, then go to dinner at their house. I had a doctor's appointment, then I dropped by the library. Aunt Barbara said that things were going as well as could be expected and sounded good. When I went home, I went up to my sewing room to assemble the slacks. I might have cut some corners if I was just on my own, such as putting in the zipper with the machine, but that wasn't the way I'd been told to do it, and I didn't want the lady to think I was disrespecting her. It was tedious to do all that handwork, and time-consuming. The good part was that, when it was done, the legs would be wide enough to accommodate my cast, so it would look nice. I hoped to have it done by the time school started. At dinner, I was able to report that he doctor felt like my ankle was progressing nicely, and mentioned my New Year's plans. The parents thought it sounded like fun, and I felt pretty good.
Imogen got home while we were still at coffee, and nibbled an apple empanada. "I'm going to be moving in with my father and Barbara tomorrow," she said. "I'm really grateful for all your help, letting me stay here."
"I'm glad we were able to help you out," Mom said. "Remember, you always have a home here." Dad nodded firmly.
"I appreciate it," she said, and we talked about her move. I told her about New Years Eve plans, and she nodded. "We'll see how things go." Then we went upstairs.