Chapter Text
“You seem to have a few extra birdies running around since I was last here.”
“Hn.”
Selina laughed, carefully peeling off the outer layer of her costume. She and Bruce were a great deal more disheveled than usual, and not in a fun way - bruises she didn’t mind, or small cuts from shattered glass, but the road rash burns were a pain to deal with. Worth it, though, in exchange for getting to shut down Rough Cut’s operation and rescue the dozen girls he’d been planning to smuggle out of Gotham that night.
Bruce caught her hand as Selina started to go for the cabinets of medical supplies. “You can stay until morning, if you want.”
She smirked, and slid a little closer, to the point their noses were nearly brushing. “Yeah?”
“The kids would enjoy getting to spend some time with you.”
“Oh, it’s the kids who want me to stick around,” she teased, ghosting her fingers up his arm and skirting the few sluggishly bleeding cuts. “I guess that means making a nest in the family den so they can all cuddle up with me, huh? Or were you thinking more along the lines of your room?”
Bruce rumbled, leaning even further into her space. “I was thinking-”
“Oh! Ew! Flirting alert! Flirtation in the medbay!”
Selina burst out laughing as Bruce tipped his head back with a sigh. “Harper.”
“Don’t ‘Harper’ me, you’re the one flirting when you should be putting on bandages.” The fifteen year old folded her arms with a scowl eerily reminiscent of Bruce’s own, and looked pointedly at the cabinets. Selina took that as her cue to get moving again, pulling out sterile wipes and gauze and several rolls of tape. “You want a hand, Momma Cat?”
Selina, paused. Then she turned, a single slim eyebrow delicately arched. “Momma Cat?”
Harper shrugged, unrepentant. “Jason’s idea. He was telling stories for the new kids and just kinda ran with it.” She glanced away, fingers visibly tightening. “I mean, if you don’t like it-”
“No,” Selina said softly, glancing back at Bruce, one hand briefly skimming over her (as of yet, still flat) belly. “No, it’s just fine. And yes, I would appreciate a hand with these, thank you.” Soon enough she and Bruce were all taped up, and after carefully setting aside their damaged costumes for Alfred to salvage or dispose of later they followed Harper out of the medbay.
3am was late enough for most children to be fast asleep, but not the Batkids, especially during the summer months when none of them needed to worry about school. Dick and Babs had gotten back earlier with Tim and Cass, and settled into their post-patrol routines for stretching out kinks and typing up reports. Cullen looked to be hard at work on the main computer with Duke watching eagerly over his shoulder, while Jason, Steph, and Damian were showing off some combat moves for Terry, one of their latest additions.
Bruce headed towards Dick first. “Carrie and Matthew?”
“She’s helping Alfred in the kitchen, aaand I think the little guy dozed off? Not sure where he ended up - hey, Dami! Where’d you stick Matt?”
A sharp tt echoed back to them. “Titus is watching over him in the study upstairs.”
Dick swung back around with an expectant expression; Bruce ruffled his hair, making the teen snort and duck away like he was still a child. “Selina’s going to stay the night. Think we could wrangle this lot into the den for a movie?”
“I mean, it’s a bit like herding cats,” Dick grinned, “But at least we’ve got an expert for that, right?”
Selina snickered and ruffled his hair as well. “My kittens tend to have four legs and tails, thank you very much. I’m not as practiced with feathers and wings.”
“Ah, well, in that case-” the teen rolled smoothly to his feet, and when exactly did the baby bird get to be the same height as her? “-allow us to be of assistance, Momma Cat!”
“You’re all going to be using that nickname from now on, aren’t you.”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
Still, even as Dick made the announcement and started rounding up his horde of younger siblings, when Bruce tucked himself up beside her and also curled a hand to rest across her belly, Selina couldn’t say she minded. “Wonder what they’ll end up nicknaming the baby,” she murmured, leaning her head back against Bruce’s shoulder. “Bird, bat, or cat?”
He merely hummed in lieu of an answer, and kissed her cheek before going to remind Damian he was not allowed to bring sharp weapons upstairs with the five and eight year olds present.
Clark knew the value of a good story, okay?
For years, he’d left careful tidbits lying around for people to notice and share, before going all in and letting Lois publish a full front page spread about his Fortress of Solitude at the North Pole, talking about the remnants of Krypton he kept safe there, all the gifts given to him by various people of Earth, equally precious and carefully preserved. Which was true, of course, Clark highly valued every token of thanks he ever received, from banners and statues to the paper flower a little girl once made for him.
The article just happened to neglect mentioning he didn’t live at the Fortress 24/7.
“Thirteen kids? Where the heck does he keep them all?!”
“Well, he’s Batman, Lois, I’m sure he’s got a cave full of space somewhere.
His wife glared at him over the rim of her coffee mug. “Ha ha, Clark. Look, I know that you know who he is, and we both know you won’t ever say anything, which is fine - but at least tell me he’s in a position to actually provide for them all.”
Clark very carefully did not laugh, as his mind filled with thoughts of space stations and state of the art batmobiles, and the financial juggling Wayne pulled off to hide their costs, usually by burying them within other expenses attributed to his children. “Yes, Lois, he’s definitely able to look after all of them.”
“Good.” A muffled crash deeper in the apartment preceded the sound of raised voices, and both adults sighed. “Your turn or mine?”
“Me, I think. Enjoy your coffee.”
Lois hummed as he headed off, out of the kitchen and through the living room, down the hall to the first bedroom with an open door. “Boys? Everything okay in here?”
Conner jumped and spun around, holding Jon and Chris both up off the ground by the backs of their shirts. “Ah-heh, uh, sorry Clark. We knocked over the lamp - I’ll replace it.”
Clark squinted at the distinctly guilty expressions on the younger boys’ faces, but decided not to press. Technically, his half-human clone was the youngest of them all despite being aged up to teenagerhood, which put him in a decidedly awkward position trying to figure out where he belonged in the typically age-based pecking order. If Conner wanted to step into more of a big brother role than he’d previously managed, Clark wasn’t inclined to make things harder for him.
“Alright,” he agreed. “Maybe the three of you could go shopping for a new one together, make a day of it.”
Chris blinked, clearly startled by the lack of punishment, but Jon just lit up with excitement. “Really? Just us? Not you or Mom?”
“If you guys think you can stick together without causing any trouble, I don’t see why not.”
“Cool!” “Awesome.” “Thanks, Dad!”
Clark backed out of their room with a small smile, letting the boys start debating where they wanted to go. After a moment’s hesitation, he continued down to the third bedroom in the apartment, and carefully knocked. A few seconds later, someone called the okay to come in.
He only opened the door enough to stick his head inside, smiling when he saw Mia concentrating intently on trying to braid Kara’s long hair. Karen looked up from where she sat on the lower bunk bed, science magazine in one hand and notebook in the other. “What’s up, Clark?”
“Just checking in. You three doing okay?”
“We will be once I figure this out,” Mia grumbled, pulling her braiding attempt back apart into three separate strands of hair. Kara, eyes on her phone, just snorted.
“Yeah, we’re good,” Karen also answered him, “No lamp breaking going on in here.”
“A vast improvement over your brothers,” Clark said dryly. “Alright, then, let me know if you guys want to do anything today.”
He started to retreat again, only to pause when Kara made a sudden noise. “Hey, we could hear you talking to Lois before about the Bat and his kids - what’s their age range again?”
“Well, the oldest two are about the same as you and Karen. Most of them are in their upper teens, then thirteen and eleven I think, and the new three are elementary schoolers.”
Mia looked up at that, and Karen made a thoughtful noise as Kara grinned. “Sooo, do you think if you guys threw a ‘Justice League Family Picnic’ or something, you might be able to convince him to bring them all?”
Clark’s first instinct was to say not a chance, just because he knew good and well how strictly Batman tried to keep his different lives separate, but- But. The older kids all had costumes for when he needed their help in the city, and it probably wouldn’t be that hard to get masks for the younger ones, if they didn’t already have some in stock...
He hummed. “Maybe, if it got pitched to him the right way. Or if the kids themselves found out first and pestered him into agreeing. Why?”
Karen waggled her phone at him. “My Gotham pen pal just made a bet with me - twenty bucks that not even the best Daily Planet reporters could get a picture of the Bat and his birds, in Gotham or out on League business.”
A niggling suspicion wormed its way into Clark’s mind. “What’s this pal’s name again?”
“Barbara, but she goes by Babs.”
...he didn’t think Bruce Wayne had a kid by that name. Maybe it really was a civilian, then; just a coincidence.
Sure.
“No, I am not bringing any of you up to the Watchtower for target practice.” For two girls who were definitely not related to each other, Cissie and Mia sure shared pretty identical groans. “Enough of that, come on, I want us to get through lunch without any arguments today.”
“That’s about a one in twenty chance, Ollie,” Roy called out as he came down the stairs. “And the odds keep getting worse the more you say ‘no’ to people.”
“I’m not getting you your own Arrow Car either,” Oliver shot back.
“Oh hey, we just went to one in twenty-five.”
“Roy-”
“Boys,” Dinah sighed from the entrance to the dining room. “Knock that off until we’re at least all sitting at the table, alright? Cissie, come help me and Connor with the last few bowls; Mia, can you track down Sin for me?”
The girls peeled off to their assigned tasks, and Oliver unfolded his arms as Roy started to go past him. “I’m not trying to get into arguments every day, kiddo, but it sure would help if you stopped encouraging the others to get under my skin.”
“You do make it really easy, though.” The teen smirked when his adopted father let out a groan. “Alright, alright, I’ll knock it off for the rest of today. But seriously, when are any of us gonna get to go visit this superhero space station with you and Di?”
Oliver hesitated. He glanced around the room, checking for any eavesdroppers, before leaning closer to his oldest kid and whispering, “You might be getting an invitation soon.”
Roy’s eyebrows near about leapt off his head. “Wait, are- are you serious?”
“Do not mention this to your brother or sisters, but apparently there’s something in the works for a non-masks event we can all bring our families to. But before that happens, Flash and a few others are making noises about letting some teenage sidekicks come up to meet one another in person.”
“Partners,” Roy corrected automatically. “And, again, are you serious because that would be so cool.”
“Serious as a boxing glove arrow,” Oliver grinned. “Think you’d be up for it, Speedy?”
“Heck yes!”
“What in Oa did you do to my fridge?”
Kyle blinked and peered into the kitchen, where his new sort-of mentor looked genuinely disturbed by the sudden influx of fresh groceries. “Uhhh, I filled it up? There’s a bunch of stuff in your pantry now, too.”
Hal aimed a baffled look in his direction, so Kyle nodded towards the plain door stuck in between the end of the counter and an open doorway leading into the tiny laundry room. The older man blinked when he looked at it, and blinked again when he actually opened the door to see jars and boxes neatly lined up on what had been a bunch of dusty, empty shelves the day before. “That’s where my cereal went?!”
“Instead of hanging out in the cupboards, yeah.” Kyle struggled to bite back a laugh. “Did you- did you really not know that was there?”
“I mean, yeah, probably, but it’s not like I ever used it,” Hal grumbled, grabbing a box of cornflakes before shutting the pantry door again. Then he paused, sighed, and thumped his head against the wood. “We’re doing this backwards.”
“Doing what?”
“I’m supposed to be the one looking out for you, instilling good habits and important life lessons, not coming home to find my apartment dusted and kitchen re-stocked.”
Kyle lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I mean, you kept me from getting squashed by that meteor last week, and I would not understand half the things I’m able to do with the ring if it weren’t for you giving me tips.”
“Yeah, but that’s Lantern stuff, not life stuff.”
“Pretty sure I won’t be able to do any ‘life’ stuff if I get myself killed during Lantern stuff,” Kyle replied.
Hal huffed out a sigh, but finally peeled himself off the pantry door. “Alright, fine, but you know we’re liable to get called into space tomorrow, and half this stuff will go bad before we get back?”
“Nah, not half. The fresh fruit, probably, but I put most of the meat in your freezer, and the vegetables are all either frozen or canned. Everything else has a long shelf life, as long as we don’t get bugs or mice.”
He grinned when Hal squinted at him. “...did you get ice cream?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Then your trespasses are forgiven.” The older man glanced at his box of cereal again, before groaning and putting it back into the pantry. “Alright, grab those eggs I saw, we’re gonna have a proper breakfast-for-dinner meal.”
Kyle beamed.