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From the moment Bruce could crawl, there had been a strange itch in the base of his tongue, a heaviness behind his teeth. It wasn’t sweet things he wanted. Not honey, not candy, not cake. It was rocks. Pebbles. Stones. Gravel embedded in the sidewalks of Gotham. The earth itself called to him, especially when it was freshly turned or wet with rain, its scent rich and inviting.
He would stop and stare at the ground with such intense, yearning hunger that his parents thought he was fascinated with the insects that roam inside of the dirt. But Bruce didn’t care about ants or worms. He wanted to eat the dirt.
When he was three, he tried to swallow a smooth, flat stone he found near the edge of the manor's garden path. His mother caught him just as he opened his mouth, the rock already resting on his tongue like communion. She shrieked, startling him so hard he bit his lip. It was the first of many close calls.
At five, he dug a small trench in the backyard and pulled out a chalky white shard with a jagged edge. He crouched over it, eyes wide, nose full of the comforting scent of clay and dust, when his father’s shadow fell across him. His father knelt, took the stone from his hand, and gently said, “You’ll break your teeth, Bruce.” Bruce didn’t answer. He wasn’t worried about his teeth. He just wanted to feel the stone inside him, safe and buried.
At seven, Alfred caught him in the conservatory, trying to press a piece of quartz into a paste with a mortar and pestle, convinced that powdering it would make it easier to swallow. “Master Bruce,” Alfred said, voice calm but firm, “there are other ways to honor the Earth than to consume it.” Bruce flushed. He’d only just figured out the right grinding technique. He refused to speak for the rest of the afternoon.
No matter the season, the smell of damp stone in spring or the dry crumble of autumn leaves stirred something in him. He once stood for twenty minutes at the mouth of a cave on a school field trip, staring at the wall like it was a buffet. The guide asked if he was okay. Bruce lied and said he had a headache.
The night of his parents’ funeral, the urge returned with such intensity it made him nauseous. Through his grief, he wanted to reach for the edges of the marble where their names were carved and snap off a piece to swallow. Just a fragment. One for each of them.
He imagined the weight of the stone in his belly, imagined walking with them forever inside him, literally part of him. But Alfred was there, his steady hand on Bruce’s shoulder. The only thing Bruce was allowed to carry home from the graveyard was a fistful of dying flowers.
Once, at sixteen, the impulse flared again. He’d come across an article about strange childhood behaviors and psychological conditions. Pica, it said. A craving for things that aren’t food. Chalk. Dirt. Ash. Rocks. Bruce stared at the word until it blurred. Then he closed the tab and refused to open it again.
He wasn’t sick. He wasn’t strange. He just wanted a taste of permanence.
As he grew, the cravings didn’t vanish, but they stopped burning. The smell of earth was still sweet to him—always would be—but he was too busy to notice for long. Training, studies, plans. The obsession faded into a hum beneath everything else.
Years had passed since he first pulled on the cowl. Gotham never slowed down, and neither did he. Between board meetings and black eyes, the days bled together in a rhythm he had long stopped questioning. He didn’t often find himself in Los Angeles—rarely had he the time or the patience for the West Coast’s sunshine and curated charm—but Wayne Enterprises’ expansion demanded a degree of presence. Or at least enough to sit through a business lunch.
The restaurant was a tucked-away monument to precision: all smoked glass, earth tones, and servers that moved like whispers. Bruce hadn’t bothered to remember the name. It had two or three Michelin stars (he wasn’t sure which—nor did he very much care for the fact) and it was clear his prospective partner had picked it to impress him. It was new. Avant Garde. Haughty and a smidge pretentious. The kind of place where the menu didn’t exist until the dish was already under your nose.
It was the first course that made Bruce pause.
The plate that landed before him looked like something from a riverbed. A half a dozen rounded stones, perfectly matte, dusted in gray. Bruce blinked. His stomach gave a strange, hollow twist.
The server leaned in with a smile only barely visible in the warm lighting. “Creamer potatoes, cooked in a grey clay crust. Served with confit garlic aioli.”
Bruce’s eyes locked onto the ‘clay’ with a sudden, terrible focus. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice smooth but slower than usual. “Did you say clay?”
“Yes, sir. Kaolin clay, to be specific. Perfectly edible. We use it to encase the potatoes during roasting. It insulates the starch and gives the skin a firm, mineral crust.” A nod. “It’s completely food grade and safe to eat. Quite traditional in parts of East Asia and Europe.”
Edible clay.
Bruce didn’t speak. He just looked down at the plate, expression unreadable. His pulse ticked a little faster, just beneath the surface. He lifted one of the ‘stones’ with careful fingers. It felt like a dream, finally being permitted to consume something he had longed for after so many years.
He took a bite.
The potato was perfect. Creamy, buttered, and rich. But that wasn’t what Bruce was tasting. No—he was tasting the thin, pale crust that still clung to the edges of the skin. A whisper of chalk, a dryness that lingered just a second too long on the roof of his mouth. There was earth there, delicate and subtle. Real. Familiar. Welcoming him.
He chewed slowly, looking at the plate again and felt something quiet in his chest shift, as if a door long rusted shut had just been nudged open.
This changed everything.
Bruce had looked it up later that night, in the quiet stillness of the Cave after patrol. What he found surprised him. There were forums. Entire communities. People sharing reviews, taste notes, suppliers.
Siberian clay has a crisp, minty note. Turkestan clay is sweet, like plums. Zambian kaolin, warm with a hint of salt. Ural clay tastes like nuts. Nakumatt clays can come pre-roasted, invoking both smokey earth and fresh water tones.
He read everything. Ordered small samples. And in a few days, a plain brown package arrived at the manor, filled with neatly sealed pouches of chunks that fit comfortably in his palm. He sampled each with moderation, never more than a nibble every few days.
Too much of anything was unhealthy, and clay was no exception.
At first, he kept them at the manor. Then, eventually, a box in the Cave. Tucked behind rows of old forensics kits. Then, cautiously, he began bringing a few portions to the Watchtower. He kept them in a nondescript black case with a sliding lid, tucked behind the energy bars in the top left cabinet of the rec room kitchenette.
It was only a matter of time.
“Who put rocks in the snack cabinet?” Barry’s voice rang loudly enough to be heard from the hallway, where Bruce just so happened to be passing by, frozen mid-step.
He closed his eyes, mentally kicking himself. Of course he would be the one to find them. There was no snack safe from Barry Allen. For half a second, Bruce considered asking J’onn to phase them into the wall, keep them hidden in the substructure where no one could access them but him.
But that was ridiculous. He wasn’t going to summon the Martian Manhunter every time he wanted a snack.
He walked in instead, slow and steady.
Barry and Hal were staring at the open box on the counter, sharing twin looks of incredulity.
“Those are mine,” Bruce claimed.
Hal took a half-step back. “They’re not... radioactive or anything, right? You put these next to the jerky sticks!”
Bruce ignored the question. Instead, he reached into the box, pulled out a smooth piece speckled orange and white and bit off a corner. He chewed slowly, closing his eyes just for a second as the taste settled in. Warm, earthy, and a bit tangy.
Barry and Hal stared like he’d just bitten into a brick. Now that would have been just silly—his teeth aren’t strong enough to bite through those.
“Oh,” Hal said after a moment, nodding with a weird kind of relief. “I get it. They’re those chocolate rocks. Like for kids' cakes. I’ve had those. Gotcha.”
Barry sniffed the box. Then his eyes narrowed. He looked at Hal and shook his head slowly.
Hal’s smile faded. “No...?”
Barry turned to Bruce. “Can I... try one?”
Bruce looked at him for a long second. Then gave a short, reluctant nod.
Barry picked out a (small) dull white piece and bit off a piece. He chewed. Slowly. Carefully. His jaw moved like it was working through a tough piece of taffy.
“Mmm,” Barry said, lips tight, trying to find a diplomatic tone. “Chalky.”
His grimace betrayed him. He turned slightly, putting the back of his wrist to his mouth, shuddering once through the shoulders.
“I wanna try,” Hal said.
Barry immediately shoved the half-eaten clay chunk into Hal’s hand, muttering, “Be my guest,” as he turned around to stuff the box back into the cabinet.
Hal bit down. “Jesus, what the hell—Bruce.” He gagged dramatically. “You’re chewing gravel. This is gravel, man.”
Bruce shrugged, putting the clay into his utility belt, and turned for the hallway.
“More for me,” he said.
It became entertaining.
Far more than Bruce expected, honestly. For all his stoicism, all his years of discipline, watching people watch him eat clay became a small and secret joy. They still thought it was just... regular clay. Unsanitized, ungraded, scooped-out-of-a-riverbank clay. And Bruce didn’t correct them. Because it was amusing.
Every. Single. Time.
Hal would shut up mid-sentence like someone hit a mute button.
Barry would visibly shudder, his hands twitching toward his mouth as if remembering the time he tried it and immediately regretted it.
Oliver attempted to give it a go once, hand halfway to the offered piece before Dinah yanked him by the back of his collar and sat him down with a, “Don’t encourage him.”
Diana asked him quietly one afternoon if it was healthy. Her voice held only concern.
“It’s safe,” Bruce replied.
J’onn had already read his mind the first time he saw it happen. Out of worry, naturally, and only enough to confirm if he was free of outside control. Bruce’s mental defenses remained, but he gave his friend an explanation, blunt and clinical in his thoughts: lifelong craving, researched, managed, controlled. Not a compulsion. Not a threat. Food grade. Moderated.
J’onn let him be. Privately amused.
Then there was the time Bruce shaved and painted a piece to look like kryptonite with neon green food dye, even highlighting it to give the thing a crystal-like sheen. He timed it perfectly, biting into it during a Justice League video conference where Clark was in attendance.
The Man of Steel visibly stiffened at the sight.
Bruce didn’t smile. Didn’t blink. Just chewed slowly, eyes fixed on the agenda doc. He made it through the meeting before logging off and laughing into the void of the Cave.
His kids? They just assumed it was casework.
“He’s probably collecting clay samples for forensic comparison,” Tim had guessed, and the others accepted it or came to a similar conclusion. Bruce let them believe that.
Until one night on patrol, scanning rooftops, he caught Damian crouched at the edge of a parking lot. The boy picked up a dusty rock, rubbed it on the sleeve of his suit, and gave it a subtle lick.
Bruce didn’t say anything. He just watched as Damian grimaced, smacked his lips once, twice, then silently set the stone down, offended.
Seconds later, his comm pinged to summon him to a private channel. It was Barbara.
“Are you done with the rock eating yet?” she asked flatly. “Look at what you’ve done. Your kid’s out here licking rubble.”
Bruce didn’t dignify that with a response.
Barbara sighed. “At least Dick’s not licking heroin off the ground anymore.”
“Hey!” Dick’s voice came through immediately—because of course he was on the line. “That was the quickest way for me to identify the substance at the moment. Time was of the essence!”
“What are you, an android sent by CyberLife?” Barbara shot back.
The reference was lost on Bruce. He tuned them out, focusing back on the matter at hand. He motioned Damian over with a subtle wave of his hand. They met at a shadowed corner of the rooftop.
“Don’t lick rocks off the ground like that,” Bruce said.
Damian bristled at having been caught, crossing his arms.
“The ones at home are fine,” Bruce continued. “You can break off a piece. Satisfy your curiosity.”
“Are they not evidence?” Damian asked.
“No,” Bruce said without missing a beat. “They’re for consumption.”
Damian narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
“Because I have a craving for them,” Bruce said simply. “It is a form of pica. It’s not uncommon, and I’ve had it for a while. But do not worry, the clay in the manor is safe for me to ingest, which I do sparingly—and I am careful to not overindulge.”
Damian stared at him for a long moment, studying his face. “Very well.”
Bruce had always felt a quiet connection to the earth—its solidity, its silence—but ever since embracing his peculiar craving, that tether had grown deeper, sharper. The world of minerals, of sediment and weight and the scent of crushed stone, became a language he hadn’t realized he could read.
It proved unexpectedly useful.
When a mid-tier caporegime contacted Gordon with an unusual deal—intel in exchange for security—Bruce listened. The man had been locked up for three years and was now willing to provide information that was relevant to an open case, but only if the Bats personally watched over his daughter during her attendance at a lavish birthday party. A cruise ship out of Gotham’s harbor. Full guest list. Private security. Five decks. And a kidnapping plot already in the works, according to a tip.
Bruce agreed. Not because the man deserved it, but because if this daughter went missing, they’d lose any shot at the lead.
Stephanie infiltrated first, disguised in her Minnie Malone persona—who, unsurprisingly, was already invited as a beloved niece of Matches Malone.
Cassandra and Bruce remained cloaked, high and silent, watching from above and below the ship’s floors and walls.
But the daughter—Callista Ricci—was, as Bruce suspected, a problem.
Gorgeous, loud, and used to getting exactly what she wanted, she waved off the very idea of protection the moment the Bats informed her of their presence.
“My father thinks everyone’s trying to kidnap me. It’s exhausting,” she said, sipping something sparkling and definitely not legal for her age. “I have Paulo,” she added, gesturing to her bodyguard, a statuesque man in black with a blank expression and a sidearm tucked in a shoulder holster.
Paulo was also under surveillance. The capo trusted no one. Not his crew—there was a possibility of a mole. Not the police—there was no telling how many of them were on the payroll of the person behind this abduction plot. And unfortunately for Paulo, the man especially didn’t trust the man hired to guard his daughter.
Bruce understood the paranoia. Unfortunately, Callista had no interest in cooperating. Her lack of danger awareness was quite alarming. She mingled with everyone, not at all concerned anybody around her wanted to cause her actual harm.
“She’s headed to the mid-hall corridor,” Stephanie’s voice crackled through comms, low and tight. “Bathroom emergency. Spill on the dress. Bodyguard tailing.”
“Black Bat, with her,” Bruce said.
Cassandra dropped from her perch, trailing silently behind.
Callista marched ahead, ignoring Paulo entirely. When she reached the bathroom door, she spun on her heels.
“You’re not coming in,” she said sharply, eyes narrow.
“Miss, I’m instructed—”
“What am I going to do, fall in the toilet?” Her tone sharpened. “If you follow me, I’ll scream. That goes for everyone.” Her gaze flicked left, then right, searching for shadows. She saw nothing. But Bruce, from the ceiling beams above the corridor, didn’t need her to see.
She slammed the bathroom door shut.
After a few minutes, Callista exited the bathroom like nothing had happened. The wine stain on her designer gown had vanished without a trace, her stride as defiant as ever. But Bruce could feel that something was off.
He dropped from the upper gantry without a sound, boots hitting the floor just ahead of her.
She barely had time to gasp before his gloved hand wrapped around her wrist.
Paulo reached for his sidearm, but Cassandra was faster. She moved like smoke—no sound, no hesitation. One swift kick to his wrist, another to the back of his knee, and the man hit the ground hard.
“Let go of me!” Callista shrieked, her voice rising, curling with that specific brand of wounded entitlement. “Who do you think you are?!”
Bruce didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. He leaned in closer. And there it was. The scent.
Earthy. Loamy. Thick and unmistakable.
Mud.
In one motion, he yanked a cryo bomb from his belt and slammed it against her cheek.
There was a shriek. Not high and petulant, but deep and warbling.
The skin cracked where the freezing agent spread, splintering into brittle flakes of cold mud and revealing a grotesque twist of Clayface’s half-formed jaw.
“You!” Clayface bellowed, voice thick with shock and pain as he staggered back, ice steaming off his mutating skin. “How did you know?!”
The rogue’s disguise partially melted away as he stumbled, flesh bubbling and surging, forming one fist into a sledgehammer, the other into a spiked mace. He swung wide at Bruce with the sledgehammer arm, who easily ducked under the attack. In a fluid motion, Bruce countered with a grapnel to the shoulder, yanking Clayface off-balance. Cassandra hit him from the side, throwing two beeping batarangs that exploded upon impact on the other appendage.
Clayface roared, growing, stabilizing, his bulk returning. A wave of sludge slammed into Bruce, sending him skidding back across the floor. Clayface swiped again, this time at Cassandra. She jumped to get out of the way, but Clayface changed his trajectory, catching her in the ribs. She twisted midair to absorb the hit, flipping herself to smoothly recover, landing upright.
Bruce closed in. Smoke bomb. Flash grenade. Three more cryo disks. The room filled with a burst of mist and frozen mud.
In the midst of battle, Stephanie had slinked behind all the action to sneak into the bathroom. By the time she emerged, supporting the real Callista, Clayface had been subdued, secured with anti-meta cuffs and groaning on the floor.
“Uh, hey,” Stephanie called out to get their attention. “Look who I found. She was in the stall, tied up like a piñata. Tried to wake her with some salts. Still woozy, though.”
She slightly jostled Castilla, adjusting the girl’s weight with ease. Castilla groaned faintly in reply.
“Smelling salts?” Paulo rasped as he recovered, one knee still on the floor. “Do you just carry those?”
“Yeah? In my portable kit,” Steph said, accent thick, still keeping in character. “What? Can’t be too careful, right?”
Bruce nodded once, eyes never leaving Paulo as he got up to take Castilla from Stephanie.
“Take her home. Now,” Bruce instructed. “Black Bat, escort them. I’ll sweep the ship.” If Clayface was meant to replace Callista, that meant there was at least one accomplice on board to take her off-site.
One figure of prominent note was the one who had spilled the wine on Callista in the first place. It was too calculating, the stumble too purposeful. Stephanie had immediately put a tracker on them.
Bruce’s instructions didn’t mention Spoiler by name in front of Paulo. Minnie, after all, was still meant to be nothing more than a guest, not a vigilante with a purse full of shock darts. The signal was subtle, a flip of her hair to inform Bruce she knew her role of aiding Bruce with the sweep.
As Cassandra led Callista and Paulo away, Stephanie looked down at the muddy battlefield. “Woah,” she muttered. “Hate to be the staff to clean up after this one.”
Bruce checked the screen on his gauntlet, the tracker informing him that the wine-spiller was still on the main deck. He was just about to leave when he noticed Stephanie staring at him. “What is it?”
Stephanie popped her gum. “How’d you know she was a fake?”
Bruce hesitated. For a moment.
“...I could smell him.”
From the floor, where he’d finally stabilized into his usual bloated, globby form, Clayface reeled back. “I do not stink!”
Stephanie choked on her own laughter. She wheezed, turned on her heel, and darted back into the bathroom, voice trailing off into manic giggles. “Oh my god I’m gonna piss—”
Bruce exhaled through his nose. He knew in his heart of hearts that by the time she came back out to help him check the perimeter, the others would know that Bruce could literally sniff out Clayface. An ability that is equal parts useful and yet at the same time prone to immense ridicule.
The nicknames. The pranks. The experiments. The back of his eyeballs began to sting.
It was a small miracle that his children have kept the revelation quiet for the next few days. But Bruce knew his children—this only meant this was the calm before the storm.
Bruce had survived a lot of things.
Alien invasions. Joker toxin outbreaks. The time Alfred took a vacation and Tim tried to cook.
But nothing, nothing, quite prepared him for the League meeting currently being held in the Watchtower—and its abrupt interruption by the sound of a zeta tube activating mid-session.
The doors hissed open, and Damian marched in with unwavering purpose.
“Robin—” Batman barked, standing up from the table. “This is a closed session. What is so urgent that you—”
“This is of utmost importance,” Damian snapped, marching straight past Diana, past Arthur, past J’onn—straight to Clark. He slammed both hands down on the table, staring the Kryptonian in the eye.
“You,” he said with venomous finality. “You must take responsibility.”
Clark blinked.
“...What?”
Bruce didn’t move. Didn’t speak. But his soul left his body.
“You all might have noticed, but my father has pica,” Damian declared. “Specifically geophagia, the need to ingest clay.”
Several members raised their eyebrows, others nodded in understanding.
“I have been informed,” Damian continued, “that this particular variation is largely harmless. However! I took the initiative to do my own additional research—” he turned to Bruce, who, despite himself, nodded ever so slightly. Good instincts, but somehow Bruce had a feeling that some wires had been crossed on the way.
“—and I discovered that causes of pica include iron, calcium, or zinc deficiencies.” Damian’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Iron deficiency,” he stressed, “is one of the leading deficiencies... in pregnancy anemia.”
As all eyes fell on Clark, Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose, inhaling deeply through it like it was the only thread keeping him tethered to this plane of existence.
“Why,” Clark asked flatly, “is everyone looking at me?”
“Damian,” Bruce said with a calm he did not feel, “I am not pregnant.”
“Clearly, something unusual is happening with your hormonal balance,” Damian insisted, stepping back as if he’d already proven his thesis. “And the most obvious factor… is him.” He jabbed a finger at Clark again, deadly serious. “Own up to your part in this, Kent.”
“There is no part!” Clark spluttered, hands up. “There’s no—there’s no baby! Your father can’t get pregnant!”
“We don’t know that!” Damian declared. “Who knows what kind of changes you could inflict on my father with your alien biology whilst exchanging bodily fluids.”
Several members choked on something nonexistent. Diana cleared her throat, visibly trying not to laugh. J’onn looked genuinely thoughtful.
Bruce dragged a hand down his face. “I want to go home.”