Chapter Text
Batman watched the battle from the batcave. He’d heard of the Justice league when it had formed. It had worried Bruce, that there were so many people with incredible power he didn't know about. He had spent months following this revelation making plan after plan, device after device, until finally he felt safe enough to meet them for the first time. With his belt full of gadgets and a mind full of contingencies Bruce left in the Batplane to join the fight.
Bruce had to admit that individually the Justice league was powerful, each member having their own specialties that meant they covered almost everything they would need to. What they didn’t have was the camaraderie required to work as a team. He was watching the fight from the batplane’s screen as he sped towards Metropolis. Two of the members were missing, Aquaman due to the fight being too inland, and Martian manhunter for unknown reasons. Superman was doing his own thing, flying around and throwing things, leaving a little too much collateral damage for Bruce’s taste. Wonder Woman was showing off her incredible close combat skills, but occasionally she would seem to shout something and grow frustrated when nobody responded. Taking a few hits if she was distracted enough. The Flash was a blur as he took out alien after alien, but with nowhere to put them he settled to pile them in the square. Occasionally Bruce would see one wake up and re-join the fray. Green Lantern was swinging his glowing constructs so wildly he had almost taken out his allies more times than Bruce dared to count. It was clear to him that if this continued the Justice League would become public enemy number 1, threatened for their attempts to help that led to more damage than necessary. And even though he hadn’t met them yet, they made the world a safer place, not even Batman could be everywhere.
The plane descended over Metropolis, landing on a skyscraper far away enough that it shouldn’t be included in the damage radius. The second the vehicle stopped Bruce was out of the driver’s seat. A quick scan showed Wonder Woman too distracted to notice one of the aliens sneaking up behind her. Making a split second decision (and preparing to maybe get punched for startling her) Bruce threw himself down, using his cape to glide silently and land behind her. The loud crunch of steel toed boots breaking alien bones as they fell to the floor alerted the warrior to his appearance. She spun, eyes wide as she noticed the crumpled creature as he lowered himself into a ready stance.
“Shit” She cursed, Ancient Greek curses spilling from her lips reflexively.
“Language.” Bruce responded on instinct, having been saying just that for the past year now with his ward Dick. He spun around and kicked another alien in the face, not realising Wonder Woman’s slackened jaw at his response. To ancient Greek. IN ANCIENT GREEK. Either way he had helped her twice now, and that seemed like enough for her to trust him with her back. They moved fluidly, making quick work of the remaining aliens that had started to crowd them again. Bruce matched her fighting style, defending when she attacked, and following through where she faltered. He got so into the flow he barely registered the language of the commands she threw until she threw out a hasty “Get down!”
Bruce didn’t think, he dropped, feeling the heat from the energy blast barely graze past his shoulder. A red blur quickly took down the alien and finally they were done. The sounds of fighting gone, replaced with their heavy panting as they came down from their adrenaline fuelled brawl. Bruce scanned the surroundings one final time before kneeling to check on the aliens, all alive. As he stood, Wonder woman turned towards him, a sparkle in her eye as she offered him her hand.
“Thank you for your help warrior, what do I call you?” Batman tilted his head slightly, thinking, he was a bit rusty in ancient Greek. He shook her hand though, the gala politeness ingrained into his bones making it almost automatic. Only once his hand was safely under his cape did he reply.
“It does not translate well, but I am known as Bat male.” Wonder Woman’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment before she seemed to put together who he was. Her polite smile grew excited. She started to chat at him, words flying by far faster than Bruce was used to. He was able to grasp enough of the words to throw out a few short answers, and judging by how she continued to talk, he was answering well enough. Thankfully an awkward cough interrupted her in the middle of something about Zeus and grandfathers. They both turned and there floated Superman, a tight smile on his face as he floated a few inches off the ground.
“Who’s your new friend Wonder Woman?” The man’s sky blue eyes darted over Bruce so fast most people wouldn’t have noticed. Bruce was not most people. He wasn’t offended though, Bruce was also eying the alien, cataloguing everything he could. The slight twitch of his hands, tightening of his jaw, shift of his centre of balance. The man of steel was nervous, prepared to fight Bruce if needed. Wonder Woman seemed to not notice these things. She pushed Bruce forward a half step with how heavily she thumped his back.
“This is Man of bats, he saved me from being ?backed? by the ?space?.” Bruce grimaced slightly at the words he was missing, he would have to brush up when he got back to the batcave later. Wonder Woman continued to inform Superman of Batman’s apparently reminded fighting style until a red blur halted a few feet from them, turning into a slightly frazzled looking Flash. Barry Allen, forensic scientist, central city’s hero.
“I love the sound of your voice WW, but could you maybe speak a language we understand?” Bruce felt himself frown slightly behind his mask. The justice league was unable to communicate properly? That could probably explain their complete lack of coordination, but even then, surely they could have started to learn simple commands for situations just like this.
“Apologies Flash, I did not realise as we had been talking Themysciran. This is Batman and he assisted me in the fight with incredible efficiency.” Wonder Woman smacked Bruce on the back heartily, making him stumble only slightly. He saw the two heroes before him raise eyebrows in either disbelief or awe. A green light crashed into the ground to his left and Bruce just barely stopped himself from grabbing his batarangs.
“No way, Batman is real?! That’s so cool.” Bruce stared at the floating man in green, one of earth’s green lanterns. A quick glance over his features confirmed it was the pilot, Hal Jordan, the newer one compared to their other lantern John Stewart. He must have been staring for too long because the man glided to hide behind The Flash, a slightly fearful expression on his face. “You’re not going to like, suck my blood or anything right? I am the only human here after all.”
“Why would I do that?” Bruce spoke to them in English for the first time, voice coming out slightly accented after having spent the past hour conversing in apparently Themysciran, which made sense why some of it felt more like Turkish than Greek. It still had his deep batvoice though thanks to the voice modulator he’d recently installed into the cowl. Green Lantern seemed to hesitate for a moment before building up the courage to speak, clutching The Flash’s shoulders as he peeked at Bruce from behind him. Hilarious seeing as the man was two whole inches taller than the speedster And he was floating a little.
“Well cuz you’re a vampire and you just went through an extremely hard fight… are you not, uh, what are you then? Some immortal? Cuz there’s no other way you can speak the super old god language otherwise.” Bruce made a noise that Dick had started calling his ‘done with this shit™ grunt’ and crossed his arms.
“That is a good question Batman, how do you know the language of my people? As far as I know it is not taught in man’s world.” Even Superman seemed interested, floating slightly closer to the group to listen in, not that he needed to, Bruce knows he has super hearing.
“I simply picked it up here and there whilst I travelled the world. I like to know everything, so I spent a long time learning many languages. Now if this is finished I must be off” Brue gave them a polite nod and spun on his heels to stalk back to where he had parked the batplane. He made it a few blocks before Superman was suddenly flying beside him.
“If you, uhh, are interested, the league could use someone with your skills.” Bruce stopped walking and turned to squint at Superman. Clark Kent, well raised midwestern farm boy and investigative journalist. A surprisingly good one at that, his articles were usually very informative and without bias. (Unless Lex Luthor was involved, then the proverbial gloves were off and the man would pick out every single flaw he physically could.) “You don’t have to answer right away, if you need time to think about it or anything we ca-”
“Alright.” Superman halted in his polite backtracking to stare at Bruce slack jawed, not having expected the acceptance so soon. But honestly this was a great idea. He could observe these heroes from up close, see if they really just wanted to help, and probably teach them how to fight in a team whilst he was at it. Superman’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he finally managed to squeak out a weak “oh cool…”
The two stared at each other for a few heavily awkward minutes. When it seemed like Superman really wasn’t going to say anything more Bruce sighed.
“Well? Contact information, or maybe a date for me to meet one of you and get formally introduced to everyone? Anything for me to work with besides a vague word of mouth promise?” Superman’s eyes somehow widened even further and he dug around in his pocket for a moment before pulling out a phone. His civilian one Bruce noted with slight disgust. His location tracking must look interesting. After a moment of scrolling the man made an ‘ahha’ noise and turned back to Bruce.
“We have our next group meeting on the last Saturday of this month, so in two weeks. Does that work for you?” Bruce cocked his head slightly and thought that far ahead, it was enough notice that he could move anything around, he hadn’t planned any large Galas so all he had to worry about was an Arkham breakout.
“Very well I shall meet you at the Justice league Headquarters at noon.” He then turned and walked off again. Ignoring Superman’s stuttered protests of “How he knew when the meeting was usually held.” He smirked to himself as the man seemed to buffer for a second before realising he hadn’t given Bruce the location either.
Diana turned to the two men who had stayed behind, watching the way Hal finally relaxed now that Batman had disappeared from sight. Superman had predictably gone after him to extend an invitation to the League after Diana filled him in on his skills with protecting her blind spot so seamlessly despite them never having met. To her knowledge at least.
He was dressed strange, cloth all black and seeming to absorb any light that fell onto it. From what little she had seen of the armour under the cape, it was also the same colour. His gloves were tipped in claws though she wasn’t sure if that was aesthetic of an actual part of him. The horns on his helmet had seemed impractical to her, but once she had seen his head twitch at the slightest sound, they must have been some sort of ears. Probably something similar to a bat’s sonar, hence the name. He had also seemed to pull a seemingly infinite number of weapons from under his cape. A true warrior as he always seemed prepared for whatever the aliens had thrown their way.
“So uhh, you notice how he didn’t deny the vampire rumours?” Hal’s voice broke through her musings and she turned to frown at her co-worker. Barry chewed his lip thoughtfully and looked at the man no longer cowering behind him.
“Well yeah, but he didn’t confirm it either so maybe he isn’t. Also the sun is out?” As if to prove his point the cloud cover broke and harsh sunlight reflected off the shattered windows surrounding them. Diana did not know much about Vampires so she felt she couldn’t comment on this point.
“Yeah but he had the full body cloak right? That was probably protecting him. Also how else can you explain knowing a language from an island locked away from people for millennia besides an immortal vampire with too much time on his hands?” It was Flash’s turn to frown as he stared down the street Batman and Superman had gone. He was a man of science, and mystical creatures like vampires? They couldn’t be real. Biologically though it could be possible for vampires to be real, if he could calculate the amount of nutrients in blood then… No, he was going off track now.
“All I’m saying is, one instance isn’t proof enough. I say wait until he comes to an official meeting and denies it himself.” Hal spluttered before pointing a finger at Flash accusingly.
“You! What if he doesn’t deny it huh? Then what?” Flash turned to stare Hal dead in his mask and a wide grin broke across his face.
“Then I will owe you one favour, no take backs, no matter what.”
“Oh you are so on!”
Diana smiled at the two men’s camaraderie as she saw Superman fly back with a slightly sheepish look on his face. The addition of this Batman seemed like it would bring much livelihood to the Justice league. She couldn’t wait.