Chapter Text
Bruce stares down at the surprise waiting for him on the couch.
The surprise continues to suck on his keys.
"Clark," Bruce says evenly. "Is there a reason why there's a toddler in my living room?"
"Admit it," comes the dry response from somewhere in the game closet, "for a second you wondered if you'd forgotten if you brought this one home yourself."
Bruce levels an unimpressed glare at the closet, and keeps it there until Clark emerges and can feel the full force of it. Clark hesitates when he sees him, hands tightening minutely around the box he's carrying, and then continues forward like nothing's amiss. He sits down on the couch beside the toddler, and the kid lights up at his presence, the keys falling from his mouth and hands as he reaches for the box Clark is holding.
Bruce looks at his drool-covered keys and feels a migraine coming on.
"Clark," Bruce says again, more forcefully this time.
Thankfully, his partner looks up at him, and the serious expression he now wears is far more appeasing than the glibness of before. "I got a tip about metahuman trafficking and followed it," he explains. "It led me to a LexCorp facility."
Of course it did, because Lex Luthor can't resist getting involved in a million different crimes before breakfast.
"Alright. So you liberated a trafficked meta child. Why did you bring him here instead of handing him over to the authorities like I'm assuming you did with the rest?"
Clark's mouth sets in a grim line. "It wasn't actually a trafficking ring, when I busted inside to take it down. It was like a science lab, and Luthor was...Well, this little guy—" he gestures to the toddler, who grabs his hand and starts playing with his fingers, "—was in some kind of pod. He was unconscious, and at first I thought they were running experiments on him—which already had me mad up to the gills—but that's not what they were doing."
He pauses for what Bruce's kids would probably call dramatic effect, and Bruce wonders if he's rubbed off on Clark a little too much over the course of their relationship.
"They were in the middle of growing him," Clark reveals, and Bruce's eyes jerk up from the child to lock onto Clark's own. There's no hint of misunderstanding there, like there would be if Clark was just making an assumption, and of course there's no hint of deception.
And now all the pieces align together. Lex Luthor being the one who is growing a person from nothing, and hiding it in a super secret facility? And the fact that Clark took the boy with him to their home? Adding in the kid's black hair and blue eyes and there's really only one explanation.
"How did Luthor get your DNA?"
Clark's serious expression morphs into something far more exasperated. "I tell you that Lex was trying to grow another me and you want to know how he got the DNA?"
"Yes."
Clark huffs a laugh. The toddler lifts Clark's hand and starts using his tiny teeth to chomp lightly on his fingers. Clark doesn't even glance down, like this is perfectly normal.
"I don't know, Bruce," Clark says. "I didn't really hang around to interrogate the scientists who probably have no idea about details like that, anyway."
Bruce adds a mental note to his list to interrogate them anyway. Even if they don't know anything, anyone who is willing to work in an illegal laboratory for Lex Luthor deserves to have a little bit of fear put into them.
"Plus, we have a little bit more on our hands than just Luthor attempting to clone me."
Bruce raises an eyebrow. "Pray tell."
"He isn't actually a clone of me," Clark says. "He's more like—well, he's only half me. Lex had to throw in some human DNA to make it work. So he's half a clone of me and half a clone of someone else."
Bruce restrains himself from informing Clark that the toddler isn't a 'half clone' any more than Bruce is a half clone of Thomas Wayne. When there's two people's DNA combining to create another human, that's not as simple as a clone anymore. It's your flesh and blood child.
"Mazel tov."
Clark gives him a look. Bruce gives a small smirk in response. The toddler, apparently bored of engaging in an oral fixation, starts playing with the box Clark brought out. With some amount of amusement, Bruce notes that it's the Candyland box, sans the board and all the pieces. Bruce decides he doesn't care enough to ask why Clark brought an empty box for the kid to play with.
"Aren't you curious about who the other person is?" Clark asks, a touch moodily.
Ah yes, the other 'parent'. "I would assume Luthor's ego is too big to use anyone's DNA but his own."
Clark snorts, and almost looks like he wants to agree, but shakes his head instead. "Seems Luthor decided to rig the game a little bit more in his favor—why have a half-Kryptonian half-regular human when you can have a half-Kryptonian half-metahuman."
Bruce feels his headache start to return. "And just what metahuman did Luthor think it was a good idea to get the DNA from?"
Clark winces, and Bruce's brain already starts going into overdrive, picturing all of the villainous metas Luthor could pick up the phone and call, all of them perfectly willing to hand a swab of spit over for the potential of having a weapon that could go toe to toe with Superman.
"Slade Wilson."
Bruce blinks. That...is not as bad as it could be. For one, Bruce at least doesn't have to worry about any strange powers, since Wilson only possesses enhancements on normal human traits, nothing outrageous. Nothing that Clark doesn't already have. Of course, Wilson did produce an incredibly powerful, threatening metahuman—for all that Joseph was on their side, the circumstances around his death proved just how deadly he could be when his morality was lifted.
A definite plus though is that Bruce doesn't think Wilson would care overly much about this. As far as Bruce can tell, Wilson loved his kids, but he wasn't exactly a present father. He might not care that there's a child running around carrying his DNA. Bruce doesn't know a lot about Rose Wilson, but he doesn't think she and her father are especially close. At least, she's close with Dick, and Bruce can't imagine that being true and her having any kind of relationship with someone like Deathstroke.
"You done analyzing all the risks yet?" Clark asks dryly. "Or should I give you more time to brood over the information?"
Bruce shoots him a half-hearted glare. Clark, after years of exposure, only blinks lazily back at him.
"The risk is minimal," Bruce says. "If Wilson gave his DNA willingly, then he already knows about this and doesn't care, which means his relevance is almost non-existent. If he doesn't know, then all we have to do is cover any traces of it and there should be no problem. And even if he does find out I think there's only a low probability that he'll feel the need to be a part of the child's life."
Clark looks at him, an expression on his face that Bruce can't quite interpret. "Bruce," he says slowly, "we have to tell him."
Bruce stares at him. When Clark doesn't back down or yell 'gotcha!', Bruce barks a laugh. "You can't be serious. You want to go to Deathstroke and inform him that we're in possession of what is basically his child?"
The acknowledgement of what this kid truly is, their child, seems to draw Clark up short for a few moments. He rallies quickly though, shooting back with, "You're right, it's his kid too! He deserves to know it exists. Plus, didn't you just say he wouldn't care? What's the harm in telling him, then?"
"That was the best case scenario," Bruce snaps. "Worst case is that he realizes he doesn't want a science experiment running around with his DNA and decides to permanently take care of the issue!"
Clark looks stunned. Then his expression softens, but Bruce can see the resolve settling under his skin. "Bruce," he says gently, "Slade Wilson is many things, but I highly doubt he's a child killer."
Deathstroke doesn't have a history of killing children, but those are only the missions Bruce knows about, and more importantly a mission he does know about is when Wilson tried to kill Dick and all his friends, all of whom were teenagers at the time, some certainly on the younger end of the spectrum. How does Bruce know where Wilson draws the line? And is he willing to take that risk?
"Look," Clark sighs. "The right thing to do is tell him. If you're really concerned, we can put Kon somewhere safe while we talk to him, just in case he has a really negative reaction. And I mean, this kid right here is half Kryptonian—it's going to take a lot more than a sword or some bullets to take him down."
All valid points, but the thing Bruce's mind actually gets stuck on is, "Kon?"
Clark blinks, and then strangely he flushes, cheeks going red as his eyes dart away from Bruce's own. "Ah, yeah. Um, Kon-El."
He named him already. Not only named him, but gave him a Kryptonian name. So Clark is not only attached, but he's dedicated.
Somehow, that makes Bruce feel better about the whole situation. If Clark is truly dedicated to this child, then he wouldn't make light-hearted decisions about his safety. He listened to Bruce's concern about Wilson's reaction, and responded appropriately. And frankly, he made a good point about the indestructibility of the toddler—not that it would be hard for someone of Wilson's caliber to get his hands on some Kryptonite.
Bruce withholds a sigh, and steps forward, sitting down in the armchair facing the couch. He folds his hands together, bracing his forearms on his thighs as he leans forward and catches Clark's gaze again.
"If you're determined to tell him, then fine, we will," Bruce agrees, and Clark straightens, pleased with the win. But also bracing for the caveat he knows is coming—Bruce doesn't disappoint. "But you're certainly not doing it alone, and at the first sign that he's pissed about the existence of...Kon, I'm locking the cave down tight."
A ghost of a smile crosses Clark's face. "The cave?"
"Of course. Safest place there is, and where Kon will be staying while we go on this little meeting."
Clark nods his agreement, looking amused, but then adds, "You know he has a right to be upset, right? If he didn't give his DNA to Lex willingly, then Lex stole his DNA and created an actual living, breathing person out of it. If that's not cause for upset, I don't know what is."
Bruce pauses, pulls himself back, going over the conversation they've had so far. And then he curses himself, because there's something he should've asked when he first learned about what Luthor did, and it wasn't to ask about where he got the DNA in the first place.
"Are you alright?" Bruce asks quietly.
Clark softens, and offers a slightly strained smile. "Yeah, I...Better now, I think. But it's—such an invasion. And I was so pissed earlier, like you wouldn't believe. But then Kon started playing with my cape and it all...None of that seemed to matter as much, you know? No matter how he got here, he's...me. He's mine. And he's just a baby. Hard to stay mad after looking at this chubby little face."
It is a cute kid, Bruce can acknowledge that. He has Clark's thick mop of dark hair and bright blue eyes. Though the eyes are a few shades lighter, actually—more of an icy blue than a deep one. Probably Wilson's influence. But still, cute kid. Round cheeks, pudgy little fingers, a wide toothy smile...Yeah, Bruce can see how Clark melted for this boy.
And it's not like Bruce doesn't understand what Clark was talking about. None of Bruce's boys are his by blood, but they still captured him when they first came into his life. Nothing else mattered but keeping them safe, giving them a home. Clark must be experiencing that feeling now, times about a million.
"Talk to me if you're ever not okay," Bruce says. "This is—a lot. Tell me whenever it's too much. We'll handle it."
Clark's smile eases, and Bruce finds that some of the tension in his shoulders eases as well. "I know, B. Never a doubt in my mind about that."
They decide that the simplest course of action, rather than trying to hunt Slade Wilson down in the world, is to bring him to Gotham.
It's rather easy to create a fake job offer, with Wilson's usual price plus a little bonus for having to come to a city mercenaries like to avoid, and it isn't long before Wilson is accepting the job.
(Bruce keeps himself from pointing out to Clark that if Wilson does want to be in Kon's life, this is the kind of man they'll be allowing around the child. A man who easily accepts kill contracts. But Clark already knows that, and pointing it out will serve absolutely no purpose.)
As Bruce planned, Kon is currently in the batcave, playing with whatever it is Alfred comes up with to amuse the toddler. It's been a long time since Alfred had to care for anyone below their tween years, but watching Alfred easily manage the toddler showed that he clearly hadn't lost his skills.
As for the others, Tim is out on a shortened patrol on the other side of Gotham, just to keep an eye on things; Jason is currently out of Gotham, so no worries about Red Hood potentially causing issues; and Dick is still over in Bludhaven, because Bruce had no idea how to broach the topic of there being a super baby now living at the Manor, so he elected to pin that conversation for another day.
Deathstroke arrives right on schedule, and uses the route Bruce predicted he would (because it's the same route Bruce would choose, from the options available). Wilson breaks in through the roof access, and uses the stairwell on the south side of the building that's free of cameras to make his way down to the fourth floor. Of course, 'free of building cameras' doesn't mean free of Bruce's cameras, which he hid everywhere the night before, so he'd be able to watch all of Wilson's movements.
Wilson picks the lock on the front door of their chosen apartment and slips inside, walking on nearly silent feet towards the bedroom. He pulls a knife from the sheathe on his thigh, turning it over once in his hand in what looks like habit before steadily gripping the handle and reaching for the bedroom door.
(The false job asked for an up close and personal kill, no sniper rifles to get out of going exactly where Bruce and Clark want him to.)
Clark and Bruce glance at each other as Wilson's hand closes around the handle. Bruce switches off his wrist computer, no longer needing the camera view, and fights against the urge to grab a weapon. One of Clark's rules for the meeting was to not start off swinging, and Bruce is going to do his best to abide by that rule. If Wilson starts a fight, though, Bruce is certainly going to fight back.
The door swings open.
It takes Wilson less than a second to realize his prey doesn't exist and there are instead two superheroes waiting for him, and he calmly straightens up and takes one pointed step into the room, spinning his knife with feigned carelessness.
"Hello, Bats," Slade greets. "Superman. To what do I owe the pleasure?"