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The meeting was almost over. The team was in the Watchtower conference room, all seated around the table as Wonder Woman ran through the mission debrief. It had been a long and exhausting fight and hardly anyone still had the strength to listen to what she was saying. Mercifully, she was beginning to wrap up, until she suddenly remembered something.
“Batman,” she said rather suddenly, “is it not possible that the resin from the carnivorous trees is similar to that from the samples we collected in the nuclear swamp a few months ago? If what Flash says is true they have many similar properties.”
“Good catch Wonder Woman,” Batman nodded, standing up. “I’ll go get the records.” Multiple League members groaned.
“Curse that Amazonian stamina,” Flash mumbled.
“Hey, you’re the one that pointed out that the sap smelled like peaches,” Shazam whispered. Flash groaned again and flung his upper half down onto the table.
Batman had just opened the drawer of the filing cabinet where he kept all of his papers when he froze. Everyone looked up as he stared at a note that had fluttered to the ground. Curious, Superman walked over to where he was and looked down at the note.
“I know your secret,” he read aloud, voice full of shock and awe. Nobody moved. They were all alert now as they tried to imagine what it could mean.
“Which secret?” asked Martian Manhunter.
“Your identity?” Shazam asked.
“Your base of operations?” came Aquaman’s suggestion.
“Something else you aren’t telling us?” Flash put in.
“It could be for all of us,” Green Lantern said, “it could be about all of our identities.”
“But then why put it in Batsy’s drawer and not out on the table?” Aquaman countered.
“It’s for me.” Batman said gruffly, silencing the rest. He grit his teeth and turned around, walking straight to the room’s communications outlet. “Base,” he growled, “authorization delta tango eight one five alpha sector two, Batman.” The line rang out over the silence, deafening as the team held their breaths in anticipation. Finally, the receiver clicked and a voice poured out over them, deep and smooth, slowly filling the room like a flood so warm and relaxing you nearly forgot you were drowning. Dangerous.
“Well, well, well,” the voice hummed, “I see you found my note.”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here,” Batman answered, his own voice just as steady as always. The others watched in trepid awe.
“Oh I have a lot of nerve?” the voice asked incredulously.
“I don’t have time for this.” Batman asserted, completely unafraid.
“Then you shouldn’t have done what you did,” came the reply. To everyone’s shock, Batman put his head in his hand for a moment before doing something no one could have ever seen coming.
“For the last time Hood I did not dent your motorcycle!” he shouted, voice exasperated and long suffering.
“You’re a lying son of a bitch B! You know that?” the voice on the other end answered back. “I know it was you! I know because the dent has a chip of black paint in it, and unless Anish Kapur rammed my bike there’s only one person in the world with a paint job that unimaginably dark.”
“Anish who?” Batman asked.
“Oh don’t even pretend you don’t know who I’m talking about, I know you were paying attention the last time I went on this rant! Rich asshat artist who-”
“Stole the black, right right,” Batman finished with a sigh, evidently remembering the previous conversation. “Look, black paint or not I didn’t hit your bike.”
“Then who did? It’s not like you let anyone else drive the Batmobile!” the voice Batman had called Hood shot back. The League could not believe what was happening. Who was this? How had they gotten a note inside a Justice League filing cabinet? And most importantly how were they brave enough to have a shouting match with the Dark Knight himself while he stood in the Watchtower surrounded by the entire JLA? Whoever he was, he continued throwing accusations at Batman without a care in the world as to what the superhero would do. “You dented my bike and you need to fess up to it!” He took a breath in preparation of shouting something else still, but he was cut off by a different voice from his end of the line.
“Todd!” the voice shouted. This one sounded much younger. “Stop your inane bickering with Father and be quiet! You’re upsetting Titus and Ace, not to mention testing my patience.”
“Father?!” almost all of the League members whispered, looking around to each other in shock and trying to confirm that the others had all heard what they had. On the phone line the sound of a swivel chair being rapidly whirled around was obvious even over Batman’s groan.
“Way to go demonbrat! No names when the Tower line is open!”
“Hey,” came a third voice, a little farther off but seemingly getting closer, “at least he didn’t use your first name,” the third person said nonchalantly. The one called Hood, or Todd, made a distressed, indignant noise.
“Oh brilliant! Now they know it’s not my first name. I could have just pretended to be a guy named Todd Something! Nice going, Replacement.”
“In my defense,” the third voice responded, “I forgot Todd was a first name.”
“All our last names are first names,” casually said yet a fourth voice. This one was feminine and it sounded like she was chewing something as she spoke. The three other voices shushed her emphatically. The League sat in astonishment, every moment more shocking and bewildering than the last. There was no way this was happening. There was a whole team on the other end of this line, wherever that was, and they all knew the Bat. And at least one of them was his kid, maybe all of them! They continued to listen as the fourth voice, much clearer now having apparently swallowed her food, asked “what’s going on.”
“Hello Oracle,” Batman sighed. The young woman called Oracle took the hint right away.
“Oh, are you at the Tower on an open line?” she asked to the somehow even further shock of the League. “Fun. What are you doing calling here?”
“Hood left me a threatening note in my filing cabinet.” There was a soft thwack followed by an “ow!” and giggles.
“This better not be about your stupid motorcycle,” she said.
“He dented it! And he has to-”
“We’re back bitches!” another girl’s voice rang out.
“And we brought donuts!” sang yet another voice, this one seemingly male. “Anyone seen Cass? I made sure to get her favorite.” By this point the League was just about at their wits end.
“How many are there?” Flash whispered desperately, his entire world view shattering around him. There was another round of “shhhhhhh”s.
“Quiet Nightwing! We’re on the phone with Batman and his team.” There was a soft “ohhh” from the two voices before the newest male voice asked,
“Is this about Roy joyriding the Batmobile?”
“What?” roared both Hood and Batman in unison. “I’ll kill him,” Hood growled, “and I’ll kill you for not telling me! He dented my bike!” There was a series of loud crashes, running footsteps, and a soft cry of surprise followed by still more crashes and the scattered “come here!” and “move!” as well as more running and bets being called out as the rest rushed after the other two. The voice belonging to the one called Oracle, who had apparently stayed behind at the phone, laughed.
“So B, tell me, do you regret having kids?”
“I’m starting to,” Batman groaned. The voice laughed again.
“Sorry to hear that. Agent A and I’ll make sure they don’t destroy the place.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem. Stay frosty,” she said as she hung up the line.
“I don’t even know what that means,” Batman mumbled to himself. He turned around to see the rest of the League staring at him like he had three heads and one of them had just said that he had seven children. He stared them down right back.
“Not. A. Word.” he said. Gaping, the Justice League watched as Batman, the Dark Knight, the Defender of Gotham, and evidently a Tired Dad, walked out of the room, got some ibuprofen, and lied down. He desperately needed a break.