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“I know you have your No Meta rule in Gotham, and I suddenly showed up in the cave without even warning you or calling Alfred, but I didn't know who to turn to and you're the one who, besides me, understands Kryptonians best, if Kara were here maybe she could help but she's off the planet and..."
Clark, the great and powerful Superman, one of the finest in the world, was hyperventilating.
Kon, his recently discovered clone and adopted son ( sort of), had been missing for 25 hours, so sue him for being anxious.
Lex may have managed to capture the child, and bring him back to one of his laboratories.
Clark had done so much to take Kon away from him, and now he might have brought him back complete with a note of apologizing for the trouble.
It was all his fault. He should have more patience. Kon was only ten years old, physically, but he had been alive less than five months.
Just, it was so difficult to be a father, without any preparation whatsoever.
It's not that he's never thought about having children, no. It's that Kon's existence wasn't exactly planned, and he had so much to deal with in the simple implications of the kid's life that he would need a long session with Dinah.
He didn't have time and his relationship with his clone was very tense, and Clark wasn't proud of the things he said to Kon before the child flew away soon after.
“Clark…”
“What's wrong with me? I love him but sometimes I feel like it's wrong, but he's just a child and it's not like he asked to be created, and he finds himself dealing with me..."
“Clark…”
“If I could go back in time I would punch myself in the face. I was an idiot and..."
He felt two strong hands on his shoulders, and found himself with Bruce's face a few centimeters from his face. The man had a hint of a beard and bloodshot eyes.
“Does the child in question have black hair?”
“Yeah.”
"Blue eyes?"
“Yes.”
“Is he wearing a black t-shirt with a huge S?”
"Yay! Rao, Bruce. Have you seen him?"
A long pause, then Bruce decided to speak, "He's here."
“What?”
“He's eating Alfred's pancakes upstairs right now. He was very angry,” he added, giving him a sideways glance. Honestly? He deserved it.
He wasn't handling the whole surprise father thing well at all, and Kon was just… difficult to deal with. Clark had to remind himself that the child was not just a clone, but a living being with his own preferences and inclinations. He needed to stop expecting Kon to act like him.
Worst of all, he needed to stop expecting Kon to be like Lex.
“How did he get here? I never revealed your identity to him,” Clark said, confused.
“He kidnapped my stalker and I found them making the Riddler cry. Edward chose to go to Akrham rather than have to deal with them.”
This only added more to his confusion.
“Kon did what? Wait, do you have a stalker?”
“Good that you have your priorities in order,” Bruce commented, as he made his way out of the cave. Clark already regretted the loss of contact.
Clark followed him, and defended himself, "Sorry, but you will understand the confusion when you not only tell me that my... that Kon fought one of your Rouges, but also shocked him to the point that he ended up back in the asylum."
“He didn't do it alone. “
"Right. Your stalker. So Kon met a strange man, a possible Rouge and allied himself with..."
“Not an adult.”
Clark widened his eyes comically. Bruce just sighed, "Come upstairs, I'll show you."
The alien obeyed, and followed him out of the cave.
As Bruce had already told him, Kon was in the dining room eating pancakes, moaning with his mouth full while Alfred gently scolded him and cooked more pancakes. Effect of a fast metabolism and rabies hunger.
Next to him was Jason, nodding in agreement at whatever Kon was saying, and on the other side was another child, perhaps younger than Kon.
Jason was the first to notice them. He smiled, "Oh, here's the butthead."
Clark blushed. He guessed Kon hadn't had many good things to say about him.
Kon swallowed and stood up in his chair, "You call him!"
“I didn't,” Bruce explained. “He came to me for help.”
“What, Lex Luthor brought together a league of all of Superman's enemies and he doesn't know how to deal with them?”
“Nothing that dramatic. He wanted help finding you.”
Kon looked at Clark with wide eyes, surprised, “Were you worried?”
It wasn't a good sign for a child to seem so surprised that an adult cared for him, was it?
Clark nodded, and Kon blurted out, “But you don't want me! You always call me clone!”
“That's because…” Bruce elbowed him, glaring at him. If Batman of all people had to step in to keep you from saying the wrong thing, that meant it was serious.
He coughed, “I won't hide from you that I wasn't ready to...well, to everything. But I didn't want to hurt you. I'm trying to do my best."
“Evidently, it's not enough, Super,” Jason commented, eyes narrowed and the look of someone who was deciding how to use the kryptonite to hurt him.
Bruce had told him that his son was very touchy about certain things, and he guessed that deadass parents were one of those things.
"I am sorry. I'll try to do better."
“Start stopping calling me clone,” Kon said. "It's annoying."
“I will,” he promised. “But if we ever have another disagreement, don't fly away without telling me where you're going. “
“Don't be an idiot, and maybe I'll tell you where I'm going.”
“Hell yeah,” Jason laughed, and the other boy was smiling too.
“I see you've made some friends,” Clark tried to say.
“Did you think I couldn't do it?”
“No, um…”
“Well, not only have I made friends, but I have a bat of my own now. Fuck off.”
"Jason..." Bruce looked towards his son, knowing full well where Kon's new vocabulary came from. Jason just shrugged, not looking the least bit sorry. Clark instead said to Kon, "Ah, I'm glad you and Jason get along so well..."
“Jason? I was talking about Tim.”
“Who?”
“Um…me,” the other boy said, raising his hand shyly. “My name is Timothy…Tim Drake.”
“You are not Bruce's son.”
“For now,” Jason muttered, making Bruce groan softly. There was a whole discussion that he knew nothing about, wasn't there?
Tim blushed,”Oh no, I'm just the neighbor's kid. Kon found me while… while I was taking photographs.”
Clark then realized, “Are you the stalker?! You are seven years old!”
“Nine,” Tim corrected him. “And I'm not a stalker. Stalkers are creepy. I'm a fan."
“A fan,” Clark repeated.
“A fan,” Bruce confirmed, getting himself a cup of coffee. “He identified my patrol routes and decided to try to follow me to photograph my most beautiful fights. Plus, he's known who I am for a few months.”
“Huh?!”
“He's very stealthy,” Bruce continued as if he hadn't just said that a nine-year-old was following him at night and had done nothing to stop him.
“Bruce, you can't pretend nothing happened and…”
“I didn't pretend anything happened. I didn't know anything about it."
“Wait, didn't you know?”
“He didn't know because Tim is very good and very intelligent!” Kon chimed in, making Tim blush at the compliment. “He could screw Lex too!”
"This is…"
“My bat is better than yours, Clark. Deal with it!”
“I'm not a bat,” Tim said, and Kon retorted, “Duh, you will be. You are already on the right path. When we grow up we will be the new Superman and Batman, and we will send the bad guys to prison!”
“Do you really want to do fight crime? With me?" Tim asked, his voice full of amazement.
Kon nodded without a hint of doubt, “With who else?”
“Well, there would be Dick Grayson, Jason…”
“Nah,” Jason said. “Batman isn't as magical as Robin.”
Tim nodded as if he agreed with him, and Kon said, “There's no other Batman I'd want to work with! If anyone else tried to take your place, I would send them to Mars!”
"Kon, don't send people to other planets," Clark scolded.
“I will if Tim won't be my Batman!"
“Luckily, there's still time for that,” Alfred said conciliatorily, placing a plate full of pancakes on the table. “Do the young masters want to favor?”
“Yess!”
While the children were busy eating, future Batman and Superman aside, Clark asked, “What are you going to do with Tim? Do his parents agree to let him stay here?”
“They can hardly be, since they're not in Gotham.”
"Where are they?"
"In Morocco."
“And what does his nanny say?”
Bruce's expression hardened, “Apparently, Tim is too old for a nanny. “
“He's nine,” Clark felt he had to point out.
“Explain it to his parents.”
They remained silent for a few moments, while Jason put more pancakes on Tim's plate because, in his words, if he wanted to become as great as Batman he had to start now.
At one point, Clark felt like asking, “So… when are you going to adopt this one?”
The absolutely dirty look Bruce gave him was totally worth it.