Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Green Arrow slammed his tray down beside Clark, who jumped. “Geez, GA,” he laughed, “do you gotta scare a guy like that?”  

“You,” Ollie pointed his fork at Clark, practically poking him in the chest. “You said. That  Bats’s  kid was an easygoing, happy guy! Roy agreed with you! Do you two think this is funny or something?”  

“No...?” Clark felt the puzzlement slot into place. “He  is  happy and easygoing. It’s hard to believe that Batman raised him, sometimes. But, I mean, he has his broody moments...”  

“Is this a joke at my expense or something? Ha, ha, ha. I’m not amused, Supes. That kid is the angriest, most intense kid I’ve ever met in my  life . He tried to stab me! With a katana! What part of  stabby  murder child screams ‘easygoing’ to you, exactly?” Ollie stabbed at his food blindly, then shoved his fork into his mouth.  

“Stab...?”  

“Angry, perhaps,” Diana said from Clark’s other side. “But he was a perfect gentleman in my presence.”  

“Angry?” Clark turned to Diana. “He wouldn’t stop smiling when  I  was talking to him. I mean. I’m sure everyone has their moments of anger, but I wouldn’t call him an-an angry person.” He frowned from Diana, then back to Arrow.  

Oliver leaned his cheek into his hand and stabbed at his tray a few more times. If Clark had to give his expression a name, he’d say Ollie’s expression fell into the ‘petulant’ category. “Angry! He was a little demon. I didn’t know that much vitriol could fit into someone that short.”  

Short? Clark opened and closed his mouth, then frowned.  

“Short?” Diana asked, as if pulling the thought from Clark’s mind. “I find that most men are of shorter stature than I am. Even so, I would not call him short.”  

“Tiny!” Ollie insisted.  

“And skinny!” Barry said, sliding down the bench. He dragged a tray with him, loaded up with absolutely everything available in their cafeteria, for the day. “I don’t know what they’re feeding him, but it’s clearly not enough.”  

Skinny? “I wouldn’t. I mean – slender, maybe? But I wouldn’t call him skinny. Athletic, definitely. Very, uh, active,” Clark said.  

“I absolutely disagree.” Diana crossed her arms and frowned around the table at each of them in turn, clearly confused. “He was built sturdily, with a strong musculature. I would go so far as to compare his physique to his father’s.”  

“Huh,” Clark said.  

“Okay,” Barry said slowly. “Well, whatever you all think, I think he was a bit... off.”  

“Off?” Clark asked. He didn’t mean it to come off so sharp, but he would have thought that Barry, of all the others, would appreciate a hero with a little more optimism.  

“Yeah, he needed a nap, man. Like. Bad,” Barry widened his eyes and nodded urgently. “I swear I saw him with three different energy drinks and a huge coffee, at different points when he was updating the software. And when I tried to talk to him, it took like four tries to get him to acknowledge me. Even then he wouldn’t look away from his work.”  

“What?” Clark asked. He was immediately aware of the echoed ‘what’ from Diana and Ollie.  

All four of them sat quietly, eyeing each other with a measure of distrust.  

“I did see him running some code on his gauntlet computer,” Clark said slowly.  

Barry motioned toward Clark, relief flooding his features. “Computer-y tech Bat,” he said, like Clark’s observation lent any authenticity to his own previous observation. It didn’t, really, since Clark also clearly remembered Batman’s son saying he wasn’t allowed near computers with drinks because of... some accident he’d had in ‘The Cave,’ recently.  

“I would not have taken him for the technologically inclined,” Diana said.  

“Really?” Barry asked.  

“Me either. I mean, yeah, knives. Shuriken.  Batarangs . But not computers. He seemed more of the hands-on type, to me,” Ollie said.  

“Huh.” Barry turned to his tray of food. If there was anyone who could look thoughtful while eating, it was a forensic scientist who happened to be connected to the Speed Force. “Well,” he said, pausing in his thoughtful consumption of what looked like meatloaf, “When I saw him, he wouldn’t look away from the screens, like, for anything. The one time I saw him in the halls, he had his nose in a tablet, even.”  

“Hands-on rings true,” Diana said. “Though, I would question the blades assessment. He did appear to have several, but he seemed to favour his guns, whenever he was on the defensive.”  

Everyone stopped and looked at Diana with wide eyes.  

“What?” Diana frowned.  

“Guns,” Ollie said.  

“On a Bat,” Barry added.

Clark cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Yeah, that’s really weird, Di. Are you sure you were talking to B’s son...?”  

“Positive. You doubt me?” Diana asked.  

Clark leaned back from the table. “Guys,” he said. “I don’t think we’re talking about the same kid.”  

“Ya think!” Ollie motioned toward Diana. “Guns? Really?”  

“No, I mean,” Clark shifted. “I don’t think... any of us are talking about the same kid. We can’t even agree on height or body type. Clearly something’s missing.”  

Chapter Text

“B,” Clark said.

Batman turned to find Clark standing there. With Ollie, Diana, and Barry. Almost like an intervention. Batman narrowed his eyes.

Clark cleared his throat. “B,” he repeated. “How many kids do you have?”

Batman stared at him.

“We only just realized that there’s more than one kid that’s been hanging around the Watchtower and, you know, wanted to know how many, exactly, there were?” Clark prodded.

Barry and Ollie traded looks.

Diana crossed her arms and furrowed her brow.

Batman continued to stare Clark down.

Clark glanced away, then back. He cleared his throat again. “Well?”

“I’m thinking,” Batman intoned.

Clark blinked. Then blinked again. “You’re thinking?”

Batman grunted in the affirmative.

“About what? How many kids you have?”

Alarmingly, Batman grunted in the affirmative, once more.

“Surely you know how many kids you have, B,” Clark said, a bit anxiously. Who forgot their kids like that?

“I am trying to determine how many of them count towards the total children I have in my family. And which ones don’t count,” Batman said.

“What?” Ollie blurted out.

“By blood is too minimizing. By paternal feeling is too broad. Legal definition is an option, but that leaves wardship and fostering dubious,” Batman finally glanced away from Clark. His gaze fixed on a far corner.

“So, you have kids in at least those categories?” Clark prompted.

Batman grunted another affirmative. Then returned his gaze to Clark. “Seven,” he said.

Clark gaped at him.

“Or twelve,” Batman tacked on, as an afterthought.

“Twelve?!” Barry squeaked.

Batman started to count off on his finger. “Nightwing, Red Hood, Black Bat, Red Robin, Signal, Robin, T.”

“And the other five?” Diana asked.

“Red Hood?!” Ollie demanded. He was ignored.

“Spoiler, C, Bluebird, Augur, Oracle,” Batman counted off. “C has been Robin before. T is too young for extracurriculars such as ours.”

“I haven’t heard of an Augur,” Clark said.

“Augur is training under Oracle, to be her partner against crime,” Batman said. “He is not a public presence, yet. But, as his name also begins with a C, it is simpler to refer to him by the moniker he currently plans to adopt.”

Clark nodded slowly.

“I still can’t believe you have kids!” Ollie said. “Let alone so many! I thought you were Mr. ‘I work alone’ or something?!”

“Agent A has been a constant presence in my mission,” Batman disagreed.

“Who’s that?! Another kid?” Ollie demanded.

Batman gave him a weird look. “He’s my father.”

Ollie snapped his mouth shut, stunned. Somehow, the idea of Batman working with his dad was the weirdest bit, so far.

“Father figure,” Batman amended. “He raised me.”

“Well!” Clark clapped his hands together. “This has been…!” he cleared his throat for the millionth time. “Enlightening? Yeah. Enlightening.”

“How old are your children?” Diana asked.

Batman grunted and tossed her a look that was not at all appreciative. “Why?”

“I merely wonder; at what age do you consider someone ‘too young’ for vigilantism.”

“Then why not ask T’s age?”

“Very well. If you are amenable to answering, how old is ‘T?’” Diana asked.

Batman shifted his weight. “Three.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Ollie spluttered. “Three? My granddaughter is four!”

“That Roy has a child older than my youngest is irrelevant.”

“Okay, but you said Nightwing is one of yours. He’s like. Thirty.”

Batman looked at Ollie, unimpressed in a wholly new way. “Nightwing is twenty-five.”

“That’s a whole ass adult! How is he your kid?” Ollie asked. “Surely you’re not more than, what? Thirty-five?”

Batman didn’t look impressed. “Isn’t Roy twenty-eight?”

“We’re not talking about Roy,” Ollie said.

“If I could not be more than thirty-five, as you say, with my eldest being twenty-five, what does that say of you?” Batman asked.

“Look, I adopted him as practically a teenager—”

Batman raised an eyebrow under his cowl (which really shouldn’t have been reflected by the cowl, but was, somehow).

“Really?” Ollie frowned.

“Indeed.”

Ollie blinked. Then blinked a few more times. Then frowned. “Okay. So you have a kid only ten years younger than you?”

“Fifteen,” Batman said.

“Oh, that’s so much better,” Ollie scoffed.

“Wait, you’re forty?” Barry asked.

Batman grunted in affirmative.

“I always thought you were. Younger? Closer to my age, you know?” Barry scuffed his boot against the floor. “How are you so fit, in spite of having no powers, at forty.”

“Forty isn’t that old,” Batman said.

“Forty might as well be an infant,” Diana said. “Though such is my opinion of even the United States’ age. Why, two hundred is barely beyond infancy.”

“Amazons,” Barry quirked a smile, obviously not meaning anything remotely negative. “They live on a wholly other timeline.

“Much like Martians, to a lesser extent,” Clark put in. “They mature at about half the rate of humans. Forty to them is as twenty is to us, and such.”

“Forty,” Ollie shook his head.

“We went to the same school,” Batman imparted.

Ollie’s eyes snapped back over to him, wide under his domino mask. “Come again?”

“We had an illustrious lineup,” Batman deadpanned.

“I take it you didn’t like your peers very much?” Clark asked.

“I went to a school where Oliver Queen was my peer. Of course my estimation of my peers was somewhat lacking,” BatBman said.

“Well, that was unnecessarily rude,” Ollie scoffed. “What school? Elementary? Middle? High? College?”

Batman shook his head. “I’ve already given far more personal information than I intended.”

“Right,” Ollie deadpanned.

“Is that all?” Batman asked.

“I think so?” Clark glanced from Diana to Barry, then from Barry to Oliver. He nodded and returned his gaze to Batman. “Yeah. Uh. Thanks for being willing to share information about yourself, by the way.”

Batman inclined his head, then started to walk away.

At the door into the hallway, he paused and glanced over his shoulder. “You know, Oliver, we share more than a school. One of my sons is your granddaughter’s step-father.”

Ollie spluttered and turned. “What?”

Batman walked out of the room.

“What?!” Ollie repeated, at a slightly higher pitch and a markedly higher volume.

Clark gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder. “Did you not know that Roy’s—”

“Roy got married?” Ollie interrupted. “And didn’t tell us?!”

Clark froze, buffering with the new information. “You didn’t know he was married?”

“Did you?!” Ollie asked.

Clark blinked a few times. “He’s not my son, Ollie. But I know about my own sons’ romantic lives. I mean. Jon is still a kid—”

“You have kids, too?” Barry asked.

“Yes?” Clark glanced over at Barry. “Two of them,” he raised two fingers in emphasis. “Sons. One of them is dating a Bat, too.”

“Oh, wow. My nephew is… dating a Bat,” Barry said.

“Donna and Cassie are not romantically involved with Bats,” Diana shrugged.

“You have kids?” Barry asked.

Diana shook her head. “Not in the traditional sense. Donna is a sister in arms, sometimes a daughter. Cassie is a protégé.”

“Oh. Cool.”

“These Bats are everywhere,” Ollie muttered.

“Yeah,” Barry reached over and put a hand on his other shoulder. “Uh. Congrats on the son-in-law?”

“Shit! Right! Roy got married to his boyfriend and didn’t fucking tell anyone! I almost forgot!” Ollie shrugged off both Barry’s and Clark’s hands and rushed from the room. “I’m gonna kill him!”

Barry pursed his lips.

“Should we…?” Clark trailed off, looking at Diana.

Diana shrugged. Behind her, Barry was already waving them both off unconcernedly.

“Nah. Roy can handle Ollie,” Barry said. “All it takes is distracting him with Lian, ya know?”

Clark nodded slowly. “Sure."