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He does not understand what is going on. Not fully.
He assumes the wariness in this other Justice League’s eyes is from his spectacular arrival, flashing colors and a boom great enough to shatter sound. He assumes that they are familiar with their Batman – and in this he is correct – and recognize him as a second. He assumes they think him an imposter, a threat.
He barks sharp orders to the Flash and to Cyborg and the other science-minded members; they are capable of building a device to send him back. He cannot, will not, afford to wait for the portal to reopen.
Open concern becomes guarded interest. Instead of jumping to obey, Superman takes him by the arm and removes his belt and takes him to a secured facility. An interrogation room. He assumes they have had bad luck with previous interdimensional visitors.
This Justice League is less than his own. Their colors are muted, uniforms sensible. They are powerful, of course, but they are less explicitly supernatural and other than his. Superman’s face is harder, less quick to soothe ruffled feathers. Wonder Woman is more armed and armored, mannerisms crisp like a general. Green Lantern is less quippy. Green Arrow, quieter.
This is another of his mistakes.
X
This Batman is – sharp. Cold and mean and angry. Hal hesitates, at first, despite the protocols burned into his mind from repetition, but –
“If it ever becomes relevant, I’ll tell you why.” Bat had said, and Hal believes him, and he’s burning with curiosity even as that curiosity sours and burns at this Batman’s mannerisms. Authoritative. Used to being obeyed. His insults, when they take him into custody, would have been cruel – if they were the people he knows. They are still meant to cripple.
Hal exchanges a sharp look with Diana, who is staring grim-faced at the newcomer. Clark looks like he’s pissed, that awkward sort-of pissed he gets when he’s not sure why but is intuitive enough to know he should be. Hal usually delights in it, for the humor factor if nothing else.
“What are you waiting for?” This Batman demands. Diana raises one perfectly sculped eyebrow. Arthur’s eyes roll up like he’s praying for patience – he’s standing guard over the frankly ridiculous amount of weaponry and tools they’d pulled off this newcomer.
“I hate this already.” Oliver grumbles, but there’s not much enthusiasm in his voice. Hal grimaces.
The door behind them clicks open, and Bruce steps in, and Hal sees every single one of them relax a little in relief.
The newcomer had snapped out his own identification to them; that he wasn’t their Batman and that he had to return to whatever battle he’d been thrown from immediately. That’d been obvious from the start, and a little insulting, that he thought they wouldn’t notice.
Bat’s – quiet. Quiet, and soft spoken, and careful with his words. Hal’s only ever heard him raise his voice twice – once at Mr. Pennyworth, to whom Bruce had immediately apologized, and once at his brats, after which he had immediately burst into tears. For the first three months of the League’s existence, Bat had said nothing and sat fidgeting in his chair during meetings and emailed them incredibly long rebuttals or support for whatever had been said after he’d left. He still did it, sometimes.
He's also the most unflappable man Hal has ever met. Mortal danger? Bullshit magic? Bullshit science-magic? Bullshit alien bullshit? The man doesn’t even – ha – bat an eye. But personal shit throws him right off his game.
Bruce doesn’t look all that surprised to see an alternate version of himself – bigger, bulkier, older – standing on the far side of the room from them. He flexes his hands, studying his counterpart silently, and then nods sharply once.
“Diana. Will you…” Bruce’s voice is as soft as ever. Diana blinks in surprise. Hal blinks in surprise, but she nods and unclips the lasso at her hip. She doesn’t ask any questions. None of the rest of them do, either.
Other Batman sneers, and lets out an impatient growl, but obligingly shoves an arm out. It doesn’t win him any brownie points with Diana. Bruce is giving her a weird kind of side eye that says he’s pretty sure her dislike is only going to grow.
Which is – weird.
Asshole or not, Other Batman’s just – their Bat. Fucked up, sure, but – they’re still the same person. Hal’s run into a few other alternate versions of the League before, and standing protocol is always “use your best judgement”. But alternate Batmans, as it stands, are slated for immediate capture and detainment.
Diana yanks off Other Batman’s gauntlet before tying the lasso around his bare wrist. Hal’s surprised the man can look more annoyed.
“What’s your name?” Bruce asks quietly. His body language is – tense. Cold.
“Bruce Wayne. Batman.”
Dinah looks up sharply, both eyebrows raised so high they’re nearly disappeared into her bangs, and Arthur coughs. Hal isn’t in the mood to snicker at the laundry list of mental problems he can see them both compiling.
“Do you beat your children?” Bruce asks, voice flat and odd in a way unlike any Hal has ever heard before, and Hal’s blood runs cold, and –
Other Batman’s jaw clenches. He does not answer immediately.
The whole fucking League visibly draws back.
“No.” Is finally spit out, but Other Batman looks pissed.
“I’ll rephrase. Have you ever intentionally hurt Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Timothy Drake, Cassandra Cain, Barbara Gordon, Duke Thomas, Damian al Ghul, or Stephanie Brown?” Bruce asks, voice still that strange sort of calm, and Other Batman snarls. Fights, again. Strains against answering.
His yes comes out like a bullet. Arthur draws a fucking sword. Hal can’t blame him.
“Bat – “
Because Bat doesn’t hit his kids. Oliver had mentioned corporal punishment tangentially once and Bruce had looked like he was gonna cry. Half the League had to quit it with the self-deprecating shitty parent stories because he got so genuinely upset for them and started recommending therapists and shit –
“A few months after the Riddler debuted, I had an encounter with an interdimensional traveler.” Bat says quietly, eyes not moving from his counterpart.
“He was my son, on another Earth. And when he saw me reaching out to help him up he had such a bad panic attack he nearly hyperventilated himself into unconsciousness.”
Diana doesn’t let go of the lasso, but she turns her head sharply to look at Bruce.
“And you didn’t keep him?”
“I offered. He told me that I’d have – children. Told me their names. And told me if I ever hurt them he would tear the multiverse apart and kill me.” Bruce’s voice goes soft and fond, the way he does when he’s talking about his spooky girlfriend or his spookier ex-girlfriend or his even spookier sister.
Ah.
“We could kill him.” Arthur suggests, growls. Dinah slams an elbow into his side; Barry’s staring concernedly at the water sloshing in his glass.
“Might start an interdimensional war with that shit, my dude. Just lock him up until his asshole friends come for him. And Bat, dinner at your place tonight, I’m sorry, that’s ass, and now I have the unstoppable need to hug the niblings.”
“You can’t seriously – “
Hal flips a hand, and a construct slams Asshole Batman against the far wall. Not hard enough to do anything other than knock the wind out of him – and Hal keeps him pinned there while Diana yanks the lasso free.
“We can, and we do.” Clark says sharply. He looks pissed. Clark’s had a run-in with an alternate version of himself before, Hal remembers. Clark refuses to talk about it, but Lex once let slip that Kryptonians apparently aren’t big fans of cloning or assisted reproductive technology and Hal had gone oh so they’re homophobes and Arthur had gone good fucking riddance and then Clark had teared up and they’d never brought it up again.
“Barry, Diana, Bruce, with me. John and Vic should be done determining where the next portal will open by now. Hal, Arthur, Dinah, keep watch on him in the meantime, please. Oliver, could you – “
“On it, on it.”
Hal fucking loves their teamwork. The Corps ain’t got shit on the League. Oliver’s already stalking out the door. Checking in on the kids probably won’t be necessary, but with Asshole Batman –
Hal doesn’t want to risk another Asshole version of themselves sneaking in if Asshole Them regularly endangers children. The kids are all holed up – if they know what’s good for them – in their assigned panic rooms but. Better safe than sorry.
Clark stomps his way out after Oliver. Diana sneers at Asshole Batman and follows suit. Hal reaches out and snags an arm around Bruce’s shoulders.
“This an identity crisis thing?” He asks. Bruce shakes his head, and Hal relaxes. Lets him go.
“How long can you hold that up?” Arthur asks, nodding towards the construct.
“Indefinitely.” Dinah says. Which is false, but – long enough to get rid of Asshole Batman, no problem. Hal nods his assent.
X
Bruce finds out he will have children from a terrified, furious boy who knocks his hands away and presses a gun to his gut and makes him swear on his parents’ graves that he won’t fuck them up, too. He agrees – of course he agrees – and he’s still mulling the encounter over four weeks later when Alfred tricks him into the Bentley and takes him to a circus.
He hears Dick Grayson, and thinks oh, and that isn’t enough to save the boy’s parents but it is enough to guide his actions.
Dick is small and quick and flighty, and he clings as much as he rages. Gravity does not bind him quite so strictly as others, even after his parents’ fall, and Bruce catches him every time he launches himself from a railing or wardrobe or chandelier until Dick stops expecting to fall.
He has a strange sort of double-vision for the first few months. He can see the gaps and cracks where a mask might, hypothetically, have helped. Or at least – been an outlet. Can see why he might, in another life, consider that a reasonable course of action. But he has bullet holes and knife scars and burns from bombs and the thought of those marks on Dick’s body is horrifying in a way little else has ever been.
He’s doing a good job, Harley tells him firmly, and she takes Dick for moderately legal joyrides with Cassandra and whichever of her assorted girlfriends are in town, and Dick starts to settle. He likes having someone around his age, and Cassandra loves having someone to boss around. Alfred looks consistently bewildered by the presence of a child, but never anything but pleased. Jim ropes him into babysitting duty, says Barbara’s too anti-social to make friends at school, and Bruce enrolls Dick at Gotham Prep too.
Four fights and five calls home later, Bruce corners Alfred.
“I’m afraid this will be a slippery slope.” He says, because for some other version of him, it was, and Alfred promises, and Bruce sits both children down and starts to teach them how to fight. He’s not sure when the children figure out he’s the Bat, but their lessons progress steadily into more forms of combat, into weapons, into lock-picking and hacking and every other odd skill Bruce knows, and they stay firmly off the streets.
A year later, Bruce loses three tires and gains another son, and Jason takes to Dick and Cassandra and Barbara’s brand of chaos like flame to a match.
“Your children are feral!” Vicki Vale snarls at him during one of Bruce’s rare public appearances, and Bruce has no interest in wasting his energy on her but Dick stiffens and Jason’s jaw clenches, and Cassandra’s eyes are narrowed to slits, and so Bruce takes a breath and makes a production of a white woman calling a Jewish man’s children of color animals. The speech goes viral; Gotham’s more tickled pink about the end of it though, when Bruce tells a host outraged at his language fuck you and the kids flip the asshole the bird before walking out.
By the time Bruce catches a tiny little slip of a boy chasing after him at night, his public image as that weird greasy recluse has morphed into that weird greasy recluse who is also a Dad. Dick peppers social media with odd little videos filled with the children giggling and Bruce’s general confusion and Alfred’s eternal amusement. Tim slips in behind the camera, and it takes six months before anybody realizes Bruce has acquired another child.
The custody battle for Tim is painfully public, and agonizingly easy – the Drakes want their heir, not their son, and are incapable of understanding the difference. Harley’s spoken to all his children, but Tim is the one she takes aside to a quiet room in the penthouse, whose sessions last hours and who comes out exhausted.
“It’ll help.” Clark promises, and Bruce relents, and the League begins bringing their families over once a month, out of the masks. Family dinners, Diana calls them, and Bruce watches his children tumble into those that call him Uncle B, and finds himself suppressing a smile.
“You’re quick at this.” Harley says, smiling, and Bruce shrugs.
“They’re my children.”
“Not when you met.”
“But I knew they would be. So – they are.” He says, and she laughs.
Tim introduces him to Stephanie, his best friend, a girl he met while chasing after the Bat, and Bruce does not adopt her – does not take her away from her mother – but he does convince Mrs. Brown to let him pay her schooling costs, and Stephanie transfers to Gotham Prep immediately.
“We’re gonna start a gang. We got enough kids for it.” Stephanie declares, and coerces Alfred into helping them make patches to sew onto their uniforms. Jason bedazzles one on the back of Bruce’s social-event suit, and Bruce wears it unironically.
Talia arrives, as pissed as she was when he left her.
“You knew.” She says, shaky and pale, and Bruce cannot look away from the toddler staring up at him from her feet, eyes dark and expression so very serious –
“Yes.”
“And you did nothing?”
“I know you too, Talia. He was as safe with you as he would’ve been with me.” He says, because that is the truth, because he has had one too many encounters in the cowl with women terrified a man richer and more powerful than they will take their child, because Talia has always had precious little, because Ra’s is a dead man walking else Talia would not be here.
Damian is easily overwhelmed and easily frustrated, and Bruce regrets that Talia could not stay even a few days to help acclimatize him. Bruce spends long hours sitting with Damian in his lap, quietly answering a nearly never-ending cascade of questions just as often in Arabic as they are in English. He learns to coach questions in if-then statements, detail consequences before asking for decisions.
Selina sneaks four cats into the penthouse on her next visit, and Bruce finds all of them curled up with Damian.
Bruce meets the Thomases at Robinson Park, and watches Damian and Tim make fast friends with Duke, while he gets to know Duke’s parents. They are good people, and he is happy for this last of the children he has been told of.
When Harley’s ex breaks out of jail, and the killing begins, it’s Helena who brings Cassandra and Duke to the penthouse, and it’s Bruce that finds the Thomases’ bodies. It’s Harley that ends the threat, and it’s Montoya who holds her while she sobs after. It’s Jim that covers up her involvement, and it’s Oliver who helps submit the necessary paperwork.
There are things the Bat cannot do, and staring a reporter dead in the eye while on national television and thanking whoever ended Jack Napier’s life is one of them. Bruce can. Bruce does.
And he goes home to his children.
X
When they form the Justice League, and begin crafting protocol, it’s the words of that long-gone boy that drives Bruce to tell his companions, his friends, not to trust any other version of himself without verification.
“Why?” Arthur asks. Grunts, honestly.
“I will explain If it ever becomes relevant.” Bruce says, and Oliver calls him dramatic but they all nod and move on.
And later, when Oliver brings up his idiot teenager and vigilantism, it’s the words of a son-who-is-not that drives Bruce to say no, absolutely not, and there are protests, but Bruce isn’t arguing against training or blanket-banning new members or anything truly objectional and it dies down.
Alfred organizes group training sessions for the children. Any children. All children. Bruce has long since outstripped him in terms of skill, but Alfred always enjoyed teaching him and he is more than competent to handle the children’s various skill levels.
“If you prove we can’t trust you we’ll raise the age limit to twenty-one.” Oliver says the first time the kids start muttering about sneaking out. Dick and Roy and Donna and Victor all raise protests, but every time Bruce and Diana check the cameras, they’re still watching animated movies.
When Victor, the oldest, finally hits eighteen – they have a ceremony. Private, of course, more a family event than anything formal. But it is still special, and Victor grins the whole time.
X
“The Justice League does not work with child abusers. I advise you adopt the same rules.”
There’s something cathartic about watching Clark snarl at technicolor caricatures of their closest friends as he hurtles the still-bound body of another Bruce Wayne at their feet.
Diana gives a sharp flick of her lasso when her counterpart bristles. To her credit, Other Diana’s eyes lock onto the lasso and she goes pale. Ignorant, perhaps, rather than an accessory. Inexcusable.
“This alternate dimension shit is depressing as fuck.” Barry says too-loudly.
“It is driving me to murder.” Diana says, tone measured. Clark shoots her a sharp look, but Bruce – their Bruce, her Bruce – twitches. Pleased.
She hates that, so very much. That he is happy that she would lay hands on any other version of himself, that she would threaten to kill any shade of him, because that man is in some way still her Bruce, but –
But she cannot fault him for it. The revelation must have been traumatic, even beyond its novelty. Has guided him since he heard it, she suspects. Has shaped his approach to parenting, his relationships with his children. Has shaped his interactions with them, she suspects.
Diana has faced down many a moment in her life where she has been certain, absolutely certain, that she could have – sometimes should have – made a different choice. Where a single action or inaction has shaped her, molded her, built her. There’s something unsettling about Bruce being so profoundly shaped by an action not his own, but she cannot fault him for taking it to heart; he’s always been introspective, quiet.
“While I doubt we will ever have need to interact with you again, make note that we do not work with abusers or those who protect them. We are granting you the courtesy of a warning. Any further voluntary contact will be taken as hostile and treated as such. Involuntary contact will result in detainment until the intruder can be safely returned to your custody.” Clark says. He’s adopting Lex’s way of speaking, all cool professionalism and ice. He only ever does that when he’s furious.
He's trying not to give Other Superman an opening to speak. After the last one, after what had been said about Conner – she cannot blame him.
“I didn’t break any bones for the escape attempts this time.” Hal chirps.
“We won’t bother you any longer.” A green-skinned man in a blue cape says, and makes a brief little bow with his hands. His eyes are on the Other Bruce, expression darkening every second they linger on him. He’s not standing at the front of this other League’s formation, and the others visibly startle at his voice, but they only mill about for a moment longer before retreating through their portal. Other Diana drags Other Bruce to his feet so suddenly he stumbles before leading him through.
“Barry caught me up on what I missed.” Victor murmurs. Diana barely restrains herself from jumping at his voice – the young man has left John to handle the permanent closure of the portal, and he looks –
Stressed.
She softens. Presses a hand to his arm.
There will be talk, the rest of the night. Alternate dimensions, other worlds – those are not something any of them have much experience in. For most of them, tonight will be the first time they consider other selves, other choices, other souls. If Bruce, if Bruce in another world can be so twisted and vile when their own Bruce is so very much not – what horrors could they be perpetrating?
But there will also be – relief. And support. And family.
“Dinner at Bat’s, tonight.” She says. Bruce sighs, at her side. Defeated.
“Do the – do the rest of the kids know?” Victor asks, haltingly. Bruce shrugs, awkward, and doesn’t say anything.
Not a secret, then, but not one he ever bothered spilling either. If the children know, they know from Alfred’s lips. Or perhaps Selina, or Harley, or even Talia.
“You’re not him, you know.” Victor says roughly. Their Bat startles.
“I know.” He says softly.
“No, you don’t. Because you never will be, either.”
Diana’s smile is a weak thing, but she presses her lips to Victor’s forehead, and loops an arm through Bruce’s. Bruce, who stumbles when she pulls, as Victor slots in on his other side, as the others slowly migrate towards them.
He doesn’t believe Victor, doesn’t believe them. Isn’t, she thinks, entirely comfortable having told them.
But that’s fine.
They have all night to prove it to him.