Chapter Text
The League was captured.
The Justice League was captured. They had all responded to Superman’s call for help about Lex Luthor funding some mystery laboratory that had Kryptonite, and got blindsided by the massive amount of fighters, Kryptonite, lead, and other weapons directly made for taking down the JLA.
And Lex Luthor just would not stop monologuing .
Bruce was just silently attempting to break out of his restraints, much like Oliver, who kept making eye-contact with him and exaggeratingly rolling his eyes at Luthor. It was giving him deja-vu back when they were all teenagers at boarding school together and Ollie mocked Lex throughout their entire Social Studies presentation about American Capitalism Pros vs Cons. That particular group-project had landed all three of them in detention for several weeks, a short two-day suspension, two black eyes, and a split lip.
The meta part of the League was still trying to break out using brute force and enabling Luthor’s dramatic ways. Clark dramatically yelled something back at Luthor about hope, kindness and betrayal, as if Lex didn’t once put a dead bat in Bruce and Oliver’s dorm room to try and cure him of his fear of bats; man’s worse than some of Batman’s rogues.
That made Bruce make eye-contact with Oliver and roll his eyes, which promptly made Oliver choke and wheeze, because Bruce was still just Batman to him, he hasn’t outed his secret-identity as the man’s childhood friend yet, oh shit abort abort-
Luthor suddenly shrieked and dropped to the ground, unconscious.
“What the hell?” Oliver was the first to say anything, staring at the brightly colored child. He looked like he was seriously wondering if he was hallucinating. “Everyone else can see the toddler in a cape too, right?”
“Dad!” Jason beamed and ran towards Bruce, bright yellow cape streaming behind him.
“Jaybird, what are you doing here?” Bruce was only mildly confused; his children were tenacious, it’s a miracle that they haven’t tried to follow him on a League mission before, but Jason was normally his most well-behaved child (after Cass).
“I’m here to rescue you!” He declared happily, with the exact same tone he had when he declared that being Robin gives him magic, before putting on a mock-serious look on his face. “You were late to pick us up from school, and we know that it wasn’t Mama’s turn to pick us up from school, and then Grandpa said you got a League mission but you missed check-in, so we knew something was wrong.”
The restraints hissed and released them all simultaneously.
Tim appeared from behind a computer, still small enough that he was kneeling on the desk chair to hack in. “Yeah, so Oracle and I hacked in and saw Luthor being a bigger drama queen than Robin 1 and 2 combined, so we all came.”
Bruce just gave a disapproving look and grunted. He knew that if he tried to discipline them right now, they would forget by the time they got home or get distracted by something or other.
“Wait, Spooky has kids?” Hal said, sticking his hand up in the air like Cass tended to do when asking a question. “Who would procreate with you? Like, they have a mo- Oof!”
Damian stood silently glaring down at Hal’s fallen form, “Do not insult my father like that, you honorless highlighter!”
Dick laughed creepily as he dropped down from the vents, “Nice one, Baby Bat!”
He then looked up and gasped dramatically, “Oh my god, Superman! Hi! I’m B’s eldest, Robin!”
“Chum, focus.” Bruce grabbed his ADHD son’s attention, “Exit route?”
“The girls are on that. Duckie, is it clear yet?”
“Partially,” Tim piped up as he hopped off his computer and joined the main group. “Robin just sent the signal that we should make a run for it now, before reinforcements come.”
“Aren’t you Robin?” Barry asked, looking at Dick.
“We’re all Robin,” Jason replied with a ‘duh’ tone that all teenagers perfect. “He means Missy.”
“Batman-” Diana started, looking concerned.
“Not now, Princess.” He shot her down, “Escape first.”
“Robin.” He turned to his sons and grabbed their attention, opening the cape just slightly so, “Bird cage.”
They all rushed at him and ducked under the cape, disappearing into the safety of the kevlar blanket as if they were never there.
J’onn tilted his head and made a soft comment about this peculiar behavior of human young that nobody but Clark heard.
Batman began running out, not even inconvenienced by the boys clinging to him as they followed from under the cape, and the League was forced to go after him to not be left behind.
Luckily, there was only one group of guards in their way, and half of them went down when Bruce threw Dick at them, the young boy doing a triple somersault before kicking two guards in the head and hitting another in the head with a wing-ding. Oliver, Bruce and Barry took out the other four not a second later.
“Holy Hippos, Batman! Didja see that?” Dick bounced excitedly as he started cartwheeling down the hallway.
Bruce merely gave an agreeing grunt, before indicating to the boy that he should return to the safe space of the cape.
“Did you seriously throw a child at the bad guys?” Hal questioned.
Bruce glared back at him, a very clear ‘it worked and it made him happy’ message in his eyes.
“Nevermind,” Hal looked away and muttered.
Dick disappeared underneath his cape and they continued on their way back to the roof, where Batgirl dropped down onto Bruce’s shoulder in welcome.
Barry shrieked in surprise, and even Clark stared at her in confusion as to where she came from.
“Dad. Safe. Go?”
“Good job sweetheart,” He replied.
“Hey B!” Steph hollered from where she was smashing a chair over a scientist’s head. “Do we get ice-cream and waffles for dessert tonight? We did a successful jailbreak all by ourselves!”
He hummed to say ‘sure,’ and turned to Barbara was pulling away from hacking the facility from her laptop, seated casually on the wall while Steph and Cass did all the fighting. “Oracle.”
“Batman.” She rolled her eyes in classic teenage apathy, “I was babysitting with Robin, but then they got anxious so we’re now babysitting on the field.”
He grunted, well aware that the kids were actually being as safe as they possibly could, but he still worried.
“This is so surreal,” Barry whispered too loudly to Hal.
Oliver looked mildly amused, “They look like my nieces and nephews. God knows they can run circles around their dad.”
“And you,” Dinah added, also staring at the kids. “They’re why he had a green beard last month, the little one thought he was mocking the eldest for his crush and decided to defend his brother’s honor with hair dye and scissors.”
“Babe,” Oliver whined, embarrassed.
“Batplane is coming, ETA one minute.” Oracle snapped, and grabbed Dick from inside the cape, dragging her boyfriend out so they can cuddle in the chilly night. “I better not miss the newest episode of Antiques Roadshow because of this.”
Jason and Damian left the cape, apparently tired of hiding away inside, and playing a game of tag. Or maybe it was just Damian trying to kill Jason for messing with his hair. Bruce didn’t want to know.
He waited a beat, then his heart dropped right out of his chest.
“Where is Duckie?” He growled, realising that he was missing a kid. “Jaybird, Chum, where did your brother go?”
“Right here!” Tim popped up holding the hand of a young boy in white with a house of El symbol and… a baby in his arms?
Diana quickly grabbed the poor baby that was not being held properly, shushing it as it mewled its displeasure.
“I found a friend, can we keep him?” He grinned toothily, holding up the hand connected to the poor boy that looked confused about Tim’s… everything. “Oh, and the baby too.”
He grunted in confused, tilting his head to make Tim go on.
“I saw that they were making clones in the basement, so I went to check if any of them are friendly, but only these two were here. They’re clones of you and Superman, so I guess we have to keep the baby, but can we keep Kon-El too? He’s nice.”
Superman was gaping at Kon-El, who just waved.
Bruce sighed, “Only if Superman doesn’t claim custody. Kon, are you cold? Do you need a blanket?”
“I need a Robin,” Kon replied, deciding that he wanted to keep Tim too.
“Sure,” Bruce decided to give in. “Superman, I suppose we’ll be arranging play-dates often.”
Superman just made a low whine of confusion.