Work Text:
1
Looking back, Clark maintains that his thought process was logically sound. He may have jumped the gun a bit at the thought of knowing something about Batman that no one else knew—hence bringing them closer, from coworkers to best friends, as per the ten-year plan—but that was neither here nor there.
Back before the League had been officially created, Clark had met Bruce—who was only Batman at the time—a few times, and all of those times the man had been wearing the same suit, in the same after-battle-hero-pose, with the same voice grumbles and one-liners and…okay you cannot blame him—you can’t!!—for coming to this conclusion.
When the Justice League was formed and Clark was able to interact with Batman for more than two seconds before the other man fled, his hypothesis only strengthened. Using his X-ray vision he could not see the man within the suit at all, it was a blank void in his sight that irritated him for more reasons than his undying curiosity.
Okay, the man moved like he wasn’t human! He recycles the same four phrases and grunts and Clark can not see his fleshly human bits.
So it’s obvious. Batman is an android. Duh.
Clark’s proud smile the day he finalized his discovery was blinding. He isn’t an investigative journalist for nothing!
He shuffles around in his seat, glancing at the other members of the League sitting around the table. They all seem busy talking amongst themselves…maybe Clark should have been paying attention.
He vaguely wonders what their real names are, the ones who have kept it a secret, of course. He wonders if…oh! Oh! This must be why ol’ Bats had such a hang-up around his secret identity! Because he doesn't have one!
Clark leans back, going for casual, and turns towards Batman who sits on his left, “So. I know some of us have given out our secret identities to each other, but I just wanted to say that I completely understand why you don’t.”
Batman, who had turned his head slightly to show his attention, just stares at him.
Perhaps I have made a mistake.
Clark laughs. It comes out awkwardly.
He rubs the back of his neck. “So…don’t feel pressured?” His voice cracks. Clark didn’t know it could do that.
Oh if ever a time to not be able to use his vision to see someone's reaction.
Batman continues to stare, not even giving him a grunt.
“I’ll shut up now.”
“Hmph.”
Progress?
2
The meeting had just ended and League members were slowly trickling out of the Watchtower and back home through the Zetas.
Clark, even before the meeting, was already having a bit of a rough day, so by the time Green Arrow stood on top of the table and soapboxed about how much ‘Gotham sucked’ and ‘Star City was ranked higher in like every qualifier’ just to get under Batman's skin, he was prepared to throw himself from space back to Earth.
He thinks about it for a second. He would survive it. Would the crater be worth it?
“—and let's not even get into the weather in Gotham.” Green Arrow clicks the remote and the next slide just says ‘Rain’ in bold comic sans.
Batman, as stoic as ever, makes no move to acknowledge he even hears Green Arrow.
What if, like, he takes advantage of sleep mode? Imagine just saying nope—oh no, hang on!
Clark straightens, alarm racing through him. “Batman! Rain!”
This gets a reaction. The man in question slowly turns his head to face him and Clarks' face burns red in embarrassment, because he knows, even without the man making any sort of facial expressions, that he is being called an idiot. Again.
“Rain.” Batman deadpans. Clark didn’t know that one word could hold so much disappointment.
He clears his throat. “I mean…isn’t rain bad for um…your suit?” Clark wiggles his eyebrows in a way that he hopes lets the other man know that he is, ya know, in the know.
There is silence. For once, even Green Arrow is silent.
Batman makes a noise that sounds like a sigh but also like someone has stolen his will to live. “My suit is waterproof.”
Suddenly Clark feels like quite possibly the dumbest man alive. Obviously the suit is waterproof! This is Batman, arguably the smartest guy alive! Or, ah, not alive. Around? Either way, the man has been Batman for years, of course he has patrolled in the rain before. It’s Gotham!
Clark lets out a similar sound. “Ah. Yes. I…I realize that now.”
He wants nothing more than to sink through the floor and fall down to Earth in a fireball.
Trying not to seem as humiliated as he feels, Clark stands up and leaves the room. He decides to treat himself to ice cream after a bad day at work.
3
There is a small child running around after Batman now. Clark isn’t exactly sure how to feel. For one thing, out of all the superheroes he knows, Batman seems like the best and worst mentor. Best because he is very good at what he does, and worst because he is very bad with people (and no wonder! because he is an android! Things all make sense now) and Clark has no idea how that would work with a child.
A child who seems to be the complete opposite of Batman in every way—colorful, loud, bright, talkative, and cheerful. From what he can tell from the limited videos he’d found online, at least.
Yet allowing a child, who doesn’t even look ten years old, to fight crime was terrifying. And neglectful. And, like bad? He has no clue what the physical limitations are for human children but he can firmly say that crime fighting was a hard limit.
The child seems to enjoy it, however? It certainly doesn’t look like Batman is forcing this lifestyle upon said child.
For Pete’s sake, the child giggles as it launches itself from the roof to land on the shoulders of thugs, knocking them to the ground.
Clark is able to mollify himself by hoping that since Batman is an android, Robin must be one as well! Not that android children are less than human children, but…well…if Batman had ‘created’ a child, he would've made sure they were damn near indestructible!
He reaffirms this belief every time he sees this little flippity child spring across Gotham rooftops in poor-quality videos. No human child could do that, he can confidently claim.
Clark sits hunched over at the meeting table, focused on reading the reports that had just gotten sent over to his tablet. If he were human, his back would definitely be aching from the position, at least according to Lois who complains often at his lack of back pain.
In the back of his attention, he hears the Zeta announce new arrivals and he spins his chair around to greet them, his head still buried in the tablet. Yes, yes, rude of him or whatever, but he didn’t trust Barry or Hal or freaking Oliver to read over them thoroughly before the meeting.
Heavy boots hitting the ground (purposefully loud, as he would never make a sound if he didn't mean to) point towards Batman being back which he is ever so grateful for. He could subtly push the Bat to take over his job—doing small things wrong again and again until Bats went crazy and stole the tablet from him. Excellent plan. Clark will be back in Kansas for Ma’s pies by dinner.
His plans for a peaceful night were dastardly ruined by the sound of a child crowing like Robin Hood.
“Holy space station, Batman!” A blur of red, yellow, and green flips by and Clark nearly choked on his tongue.
Clark sits up abruptly, tablet falling forgotten to the floor. “Umm…Child?” The child in question is now pressed up against the large window smudging it with its greasy child face and fingers.
“Well deduced.” And Clark just about spontaneously combusts at the shock of hearing Batman speak right next to him. He hadn’t even seen the Bat move!
Goddamn androids and their ability to scare the shit out of me…no heartbeats to warn of jumpscares!
Clark runs his hand through his hair to (poorly) disguise his flinch. “Hello, Batman. I see you have brought…a child.”
“Robin.” Batman grunts, crossing his arms.
Clark nods as if Batman just bringing his child to work is completely normal. Is it bring your child to work day? “Ah, yes. Your sidekick.”
“Nuh-uh!” The child, Robin, spins, the offense on his face clear even through his domino mask. Robin does a bunch of weird flips and tricks until he stands right next to Batman, barely coming up to his waist.
That is a toddler. A toddler in a red cape in a city of bulls. Holy shity parenting, Batman!
“I ain’t no sidekick! I am a bonafide superhero partner!” Robin juts out his chin and puts his hands on his hips and—
Oh my god.
“Where are your legs?!”
“Mhm.” A satisfied and vindicated hum from Batman is completely missed.
Robin, just like Batman, was covered in lead. Blocking the fleshy bits. Only his head (get that child a helmet, oh lord) and his popsicle stick legs were uncovered. Legs that were bare for the entire Earth to see!!
And fully human!!
Oh my god. Did Batman steal a completely human child and bit by bit replace his body parts with android parts?? No, no, what if Robin is an android child with human legs?? I don’t know which is worse. I can’t even hear a heartbeat—oh my god. This poor child! Does he realize what Batman is doing?? I—
His internal mental breakdown is swiftly interrupted by the most teenage-angst sounding groan come out of a (roughly) ten-year-old. Followed by the most smug expression he has ever seen on Batman’s face.
“Oh my god! Not you too! I thought you were cool, man. Not cool. My legs are a purposeful addition.” Robin ignores the smug ‘I told you so’ sound grunted out of Batman with the grace of someone who had been doing that for years. The child sticks out his leg and shows off a flip. Then another. “See! It helps me flip! Weeee!”
Clark, still agonizing over everything, turns to Batman. “Why…why didn’t you build his suit with legs…” His voice is low and as horrified as he feels.
Batman makes a head shake that almost looks like he is rolling his eyes. “He designed it. I just made it.”
Robin tracks across his vision doing a routine that would not be amiss in the Olympics.
“...Robin… designed…his own suit?”
So maybe Robin was a human first? Then became like a cyborg-android thing? Why is this his life? A life where a child designed his own fake flesh suit??
Batman tilts his head. Robin has his face pressing against the large windows again, this time staring directly at the sun.
Oh no, that's the, ‘I'm in the presence of an idiot head’ tilt. Again.
“Yes, he designed his own suit. So did I.”
And Clark was stumped again. Just—Huh?? “But…” He can’t finish his sentence. He doesn’t even know how to.
Batman seems to understand that Clark is now broken and strides off to Robin, herding him from the window and towards the training rooms. Batman chastises him softly for staring into the sun when Robin rubs his eyes furiously.
Guess he won’t be able to pawn off his work today. Because of the child here. With no legs. At all.
Clark…Clark thinks it would be better to stop thinking about Robin now.
4
It’s been a few years since Robin had debuted. At least, debuted to Clark.
He is certain the child had been active for a few years before he first met him.
Since then, Robin—now known as Dick to Clark (though he wonders why on Earth did Bruce name the child Dick? Or maybe, did the child name himself? Unsolved mysteries)—has grown. Both mentally and somehow physically.
Somehow Bruce has built an android that can grow up. Mind boggling.
The last time Clark saw Dick he was a young man, a born leader of his team. Clark is very proud of that child. Android.
He remembers that Dick and Bruce have been fighting lately over independence—he wonders if ‘indepence’ is code for Dick rebelling against his programming…data incomplete—and knows that Dick has…evolved? Updated?
Clark is not certain of the politically correct terminology.
Perhaps Cyborg would know.
Anyway. He has left behind Robin and has redesigned himself. Separate from Bruce.
He wonders if this breach of programming marks a danger in coding, as he knows for certain Bruce would never program an android that would rebel and leave him, the poorly attached bastard.
He didn’t know androids could have negative attachment styles until he met Bruce. He didn’t know what attachment styles were until he met Lois. Whata woman.
Clark sits at monitor duty at the Watchtower. He smacks his head multiple times on the screen, kinda wishing it hurt.
Bruce was supposed to take over his shift over an hour ago.
If he has to be on this God forsaken space ship for one more second…
Clark lets his head fall onto the keyboard—well, not really; he thinks the table would break if he actually let his head fall—and the impact sends a line of ‘M’s across the screen.
As if Rao himself answered his pleas, Clark hears the Zeta and the unmistakable sound of boots walking.
Clark lifts his face to say hello and a few keys come away with him. He brushes them off and stands up to greet the newcomers.
He hears the pitter-patter of little feet against the linoleum.
A child?? Again??
Red and yellow jump across his vision and do unsteady cartwheels before landing in a power pose. It’s—?
“Robin?” Clark choked out the name. Huh??
Bruce, in the Batman suit, stands behind Robin, looking proud. Robin (??) is small again (??) and is giddy, bouncing on his heels, heart-shaped bangs sitting on his forehead. “That’s me! The boy wonder!”
That…is not Dick.
“Uh…hello there…?” Clark is proud at how normal his first impression is.
The child looks over at Bruce, and at his nod, smiles wide, “Jason!”
“...Jason. I’m Clark.” See? Perfectly normal. He is acing this.
Much better than his disaster of a first meeting with Dick. He mentally pats himself on the back.
He glances over at Bruce, “So…did you just copy the old model or did you get a whole new one?”
...Wow. Just…wow. He is a buffoon.
Jason gasps in offense and stomps off to the window to look at space, his cape swirling behind him. The boy is pouting in the corner.
New Robin. Still no legs. Sigh. And he hurt his feelings. Wonderful.
Bruce glares at him.
Ah. Warning. Angry dad alert. Abort. Abort.
Clark shoots his hands up. “That came out wrong! I’m sorry! I’m just surprised you…copied Dick’s version so closely. You didn’t even give this one legs!”
Bruce keeps up the glare for a few more nerve-racking seconds before letting it go with a sigh. “He refused the pants. He wanted to look like Dick.”
Yes okay, but didn’t Bruce design him that way?? Are all of Bruce’s androids fighting their programming?? Also, child! Parent! Give him legs!!
Clark looks at Jason, who was practicing his flips in the corner, “Yeah, I get that,” He lies as he does not get it at all, “just…why make another Robin? Dick—”
“Dick left. He didn’t want to be Robin anymore. And Batman needs a Robin.”
Oh god. He built a new child because he was lonely. He knew he shouldn’t have missed the last meeting.
He also has absolutely no idea how to respond to that.
“Oh. Nice.”
You are a stain on your bloodline, Kent.
Bruce’s glare returns with a vengeance.
Thankfully interrupting them is the Zeta and Clark eagerly looks toward it.
Can he leave now? Please let him leave. He is trapped in small talk hell by his deeply ingrained southern hospitality.
Out of the Zeta walks a young man in light blue and yellow suit with a high neck and a deep vee neckline.
Oh that’s an awesome suit, my God.
Clark immediately recognizes him as Dick from his face—the parts that aren’t hidden by the domino mask, anyway—and the way he walks, like he’s stepping on clouds in the sky.
Clark smiles wide and steps forward, away from the Batglare, “And here’s the original! Love the remodel, kid! Nightwing, right? I wonder where you got that name…”
Dick tilts his head slightly at his first words but grins back. “...Thanks? No, but, thanks again, Uncle Clark, for letting me use the name. It feels right.”
Poor kid. His coding is all messed up. He wonders how long Bruce will let him go like this.
Clark grins and claps him on the shoulder, “Of course,” and immediately heads for the Zeta, escaping the horrible introduction with Robin and the insane tension that skyrocketed as soon as all three androids were in the same room.
He needs a beer.
5
It’s when he sees that Gotham has another new bat that Clark decides enough is enough.
A new Robin. Damian Al Ghul-Wayne, as his ‘secret identity’ calls him, is the newest of Bruce’s android children. The new Robin took over from Tim…right? Clark is largely unsure of the continuous passings of the Robin mantle. Either way. Bruce has built another child just to watch out for Gotham. Again.
He wonders where he went wrong. How has he let this go on for so long?
Clark didn’t say anything when Jason got destroyed and died and then somehow was rebuilt and programmed evilly and went absolutely ape shit in Gotham?
He thinks he probably should have said something then.
Then Bruce built Tim because he was so sad about Jason (Clark to this day doesn’t get why he didn’t just rebuild Jason—Bruce is paranoid enough to have his and all his kids’ mental maps uploaded as insurance or something). Then there was a blonde one? Then Cass, the scary one. Clark also isn’t sure how Bruce managed to build an android better than himself.
And then—this is what made Clark the most insane—Bruce has a biological android son?
Clark wants to scream.
He flies out of the solar system to do it properly.
Is Damian biological for the secret identity? No…no Bruce would’ve told him if so. What made this child more biologically related to him than the others?
Is…oh god…is this child made from, like, Bruce’s internal parts?? Like a ‘Adam and Eve rib creation’ thing?
No. Enough is enough.
Clark flies over to Gotham. He remembers to text Bruce asking if he can come over before entering the cave this time.
Last time he tried entering without warning he was shot. With kryptonite. It ruined his new shirt.
Bruce leaves him on read. Which is an ‘okay’ in Bruce language.
Clark zooms into the cave and finds Bruce sitting at the Batcomputer in his suit with the cowl off, his children all milled around him in their suits getting ready for patrol. Perfect. Excellent.
“Bruce.” Clark clears his throat and tries to get his attention. He gets a few glances from the kids but nothing else.
“Bruce,” he tries again, “this is an intervention.”
Everything pauses. All attention goes to Clark. He can’t sweat, but if he could, he would be sweating.
All Bruce’s children stop and stare.
God, why are these children so intimidating??
Bruce slowly spins his chair to face him, his expression completely bewildered. “For what?”
Clark is the man of steel. He can stare down his best friend and read him to rights! He has a whole script memorized, one that he’s been writing for years. His arguments are sound and solid, and all he needs to do is to make sure he doesn’t get Bruce on the defensive, or he’d never listen.
“You have an addiction, Bruce. You…you have too many children.” Clark makes sure to keep his tone soft; this is a delicate situation.
There is a pause. And then a cacophony of noise and laughter. Clark can only watch in horror as Bruce’s children all laugh at their father’s disorder, all laugh at him needing help.
He had thought they were better people (androids?) than this.
Tim is on the floor.
Cass is hiding her laughter behind her hands.
The one in purple is openly pointing and laughing.
The newest child, so so so small, is laughing but hiding it with a frown.
Jason, in his upgraded model with the white hair stripe (...interesting choice), is half collapsed with his hands on his knees, wheezing out, “Bruce’s adoption addiction.”
He furiously thinks that it's a miracle the boy is even allowed in the cave when last month he heard that Jason had tried bombing a mobster hideout.
He is aghast when even Dick—Nightwing! He’d thought a hero flying under such a name would be kinder, he’d thought the boy he watched grow up (can androids grow?) was better than this—laughs. “Hah! See, Bruce! Even Clark is calling you out.”
Bruce lets out a self-deprecating smile and that is it.
That expression had no place on Bruce’s face!
Clark snaps at the children, “This is not a laughing matter! Your father has a serious illness!” He steps closer to Bruce, pleading, “Bruce, please stop building children.”
There is silence again. This time it does not cease. The bats all stare at Clark. He shuffles his feet.
Perhaps he is being anti-android? He must rephrase his words.
“I don’t care that they’re metal, Bruce. But you need to stop building them to fight crime, it’s not okay anymore!”
There, perfect. Mostly.
Bruce looks up at him with an expression that could only be described as watching someone on mushrooms explain how the world works. “Um. What?”
Clark doesn’t think he’s ever heard the word ‘Um’ exit Bruce’s mouth and suddenly Clark is not as certain about things.
Uh…
A strangled sounding, “What?” escapes one of the children and now Clark knows that he has gotten something oh so incredibly wrong.
Oh dear.
He picks anxiously at his suit collar. “You, as an android…need to stop, uh, building…android children…to fight…crime?” His voice became less certain the more he spoke; watching everyone's faces go from confused to baffled.
Oh god.
Clark. Clark did not anticipate this outcome.
Bruce stares at him blankly, and for once Clark knows that his loss of words is not out of choice.
He stares at Bruce’s hands, free of the gauntlets, and sees the fleshy bits. Sees the fleshy bits inside his suit from above where he isn’t wearing the cowl. Clark looks at the children and sees them half suited up, half in normal clothes, and sees all of their fleshy bits.
Oh. Oh no. Oh they aren’t androids at all, are they??
Clark sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Have I? Been an idiot? For over fifteen years?”
“Sometimes you astound me, Clark.”
+1
A few days have gone by since the disaster in the cave.
Clark had fled and stuck his head in the ice at his fortress in shame.
Somehow, Bruce hadn’t gotten offended—or worse, enraged—by Clark’s complete and utter stupidity. In fact, the bastard was quite smug that he’d managed to fool Clark for so many years.
He wants to shove his head in the ice. Hmph.
“You know,” Clark nudges Bruce with his elbow from the seat next to him as they watch the sunset on the Manor’s porch, “You should actually be grateful.”
Bruce raised an eyebrow, immediately suspicious, which Clark finds offensive. “Why?”
“I didn’t tell anyone that you’re an android! Or, I guess, that I thought you were one. I could’ve been spreading around ‘Batman is a robot’ gossip throughout the entire league!” Clark takes a sip of his beer pointedly.
Bruce fights a smile. “Oh yes, of course. Though, that could’ve helped my reputation.” He cocks his head in an obnoxious way, “Or, people would have debunked it right away and you wouldn’t have gone fifteen years thinking I was an emotionless robot building a ‘android child army’.
Loud incorrect buzzer! Robot Bruce was a delight!
Clark scowls petulantly, avoiding admitting that he had, indeed, thought his best friend was building a army of child androids to fight crime, “I became best friends with that robot! I didn’t think you were emotionless!”
He pauses. God, that is such a confusing thing to talk about. “Wow…this is weird.”
Bruce rolls his eyes. “Just now seeing that, huh?”
He’s going to put dirt in Bruce’s coffee.
Clark decides, for the good of the porch and the surrounding area, to ignore Bruce’s comment. “And also! I don’t think people would’ve figured it out if it took me fifteen years.”
Bruce scoffs. “It would’ve taken zero years if you had decided to actually talk to me—”
“—oh you of all people saying talking was the solution—”
“—and also how the hell did you never figure it out before? You’ve seen me without the cowl, you know my identity, you know where I live!”
Clark, in utter despair, covers his face with his hands. The beer bottle smashed against his face. “I thought your face was a disguise, a mask. And I thought that ‘Bruce Wayne’ was just a cover and just an android with a really good human disguise— I don’t know, Bruce!”
“You thought I was building a child army?”
And there goes the hope that Bruce had forgotten that part.
Clark wails into his palms, “I don’t know! I didn’t exactly think it through much!”
This is absolutely horrible. His former belief falls apart at even the slightest of questioning.
Bruce is laughing.
Clark is fraught with emotional pain and Bruce is laughing.
He slouches in the chair in defeat.
He is never going to hear the end of this. The sun will die and still he will still feel this shame.
“Just checking, you know I’m human now, right? And so are all my children? I obtained them through mostly legal ways. They are not in my army, by the way.” Bruce is smirking, and Clark wants to punch him in the mouth. But also take a picture.
Rat bastard.
Clark instead just lets out a fake laugh. “Ha. Ha. Yes, I know all the Bats are humans. No child army for Batman. So funny.” Clark pauses, and takes a sip. “Since you’re out of the suit and out of all that lead—which can’t be healthy for you, I gotta say—I can see all your fleshy bits now.”
It’s a bit of a relief, to be honest; to be able to see and hear his best friend's heartbeat. It’s calming.
Bruce looks a bit disgusted and claps him on the shoulder. “That’s nice, Kent.”
He is going to put dirt and bugs in Bruce’s coffee.
“By the way, you have a cavity in your upper left second molar and you have an abnormal blockage in your digestive tract.”
A pause.
“...I’m putting the suit back on permanently.”
Ah shit.
“No, wait, I’m sorry!”