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Bruce's advanced detective skills told him this meeting could've been an email.
Now, he wouldn't describe himself as impatient, after all his line of work involved a lot of watching and waiting, but this was getting ridiculous.
Superman's voice had been filling the Watchtower conference room for the better part of three hours. And sure maybe the complexity of the recent events warranted a longer debrief, but really? Bruce didn't think 'property damage and how we can help' was a conversation they had to have in person, sweaty, sore and tired.
Bruce's mind strayed to Dick, not for the first time and certainly not the last. The eldest of his ever growing brood was currently in charge, what with Alfred on a much needed break and Bruce battling aliens hellbent on making his life difficult. Bruce didn't doubt Dick's abilities, the kid was incredibly trustworthy and reliable for a freshly 15 year old. It was more so fully understanding his siblings ability to torture the minds of those in charge. Whether it was accidental or fully intended depended on the child.
He'd promised his eldest he'd be home by eight, and as the clock ticked over to 8:47pm, Bruce's phone buzzed with another worried text. While he felt like the guy who snatched the baby's candy for leaving Dick in the lurch, the boy knew that if worse came to worst he was to call Bruce immediately. The man had promised to answer no matter the situation, world ending or otherwise. Having had no missed calls, (and he'd checked obsessively on the off chance he hadn't heard it) Bruce knew nothing too catastrophic could have befallen his children. This provided little comfort.
His black gloved fingers dashed across the screen of his phone, movements hidden under the table, tapping out a quick apology and unfounded assurances of 'really Dick I promise this won't take much longer' and 'Jason's not actually going to start a fire for toasting marshmallows in Alfred’s tulip garden, he's just being an ass'.
"Batman, honestly."
Bruce jerked upright, like a small child caught doing something wrong. He cursed his embarrassing instincts. He found everyone's eyes on him, ranging from bored to mildly curious. He hadn't told them about his prepubescent responsibilities, for safety reasons, and he didn't feel the need to change that anytime soon. Clearing his throat, he slipped back into the deadpan Batman persona.
"Yes," he said looking up at Clark. The man was floating a good few metres off the ground to reach the key points displayed on the gigantic screen covering half the wall. Right now it was showing one of Clark's notorious and feared 'damage minimisation' slide shows. Bruce felt this presentation would be more effective if shown to the people actually blowing up the city.
"You seem distracted," he said, raising an eyebrow.
Bruce suppressed a long suffering sigh, "sorry, please continue explaining, uh," he squinted at the title at the top of the screen, "'pavement reconstruction' to me."
Clark, still dressed in his torn Superman costume, mud splattered and weary, looked unimpressed, "Look Bruce, if you've got something to say just say it."
Bruce new Clark got testy when he was tired, everyone did, and nothing made a man more tired than fighting of an alien invasion. But Bruce was tired too, he had kids at home who needed him, and he wasn't about to tiptoe around the man inadvertently keeping him from them."Ok Clark, some of us have responsibilities outside 'how to make concrete 101', so I'd appreciate it if you'd skip to the parts relevant to everyone."
Clark stared at him incredulously, but Hal spoke first, "I think your next hookup can wait another hour Batsy."
Bruce's lips pulled into a snarl and he ignored the new wave of buzzing coming from his phone. Pressing his hands flat on the table, he leaned towards Green Lantern and his stupidly punchable face. "Remind me Hal, which one of us has a habit of slamming things into the side of buildings with a big green fist," he turned his glare back to Clark, "All I'm saying is its getting and late and I don't know why I have to be here to listen to how we're going to fix his fuck ups-"
"Oh sure, blame the guy who brought down the mother ship," Hal sneered, crossing his arms defensively, "when was the last time your batarangs did that?"
"Silence! Both of you!" Diana said loudly, standing, sword in hand for intimidation purposes Bruce was sure.
"We're all here because the Mayor has requested we take greater precautions to minimise property damage and that's everyone's business, Bruce," Clark snapped, a heavy scowl in place, "now if you would like to raise any concerns like an adult I would be happy to-"
"Fucking-"
"Children!" Flash said, cutting of whatever insult Bruce had ready, "can we please just get this over with, as Bruce so politely put it before we do have lives to get back to so if you could all sit down, shut up and listen" he glared at each of them in turn, "we'll be out of here in a flash."
No one commented on his cheap joke, all eyes on him as he sagged in his seat, any mature assertiveness gone from his posture.
Superman took a moment to regain his composure before shaking his head and turning back to his dot points. Bruce's phone chose that time to buzz loudly against the table from where he'd slammed it just a minute ago. Clark and Hal both glared at him. Incoming call, the screen read.
Before his fingers even touched it, the phone had disappeared in a flash of yellow and red.
Bruce whipped his head to glare at the device in the Flash's hand. The long table stood between them.
"Give me the phone Barry," he said deadly calm.
While his confidence had waned significantly, he remained firm, grip tightening, "Did you not here what I just said-"
"Give me. The phone." Bruce grit out, anger covering his growing anxiety. It continued to ring, shrill and demanding. The atmosphere was excruciatingly tense. Bruce could feel it compressing him, or was that just his own suffocating fear?
"Jesus man, calm down," Hal muttered, eyes flicking between the two men nervously. As if Bruce's kids weren't in danger, as if his whole life wasn't in limbo.
"Bruce, seriously what's wrong? You've been biting everyone's heads off all afternoon," Clark looked genuinely concerned. Bruce wanted to throw something at him.
Just before he launched himself across the conference table, batarangs out and deadly, a small sharp voice cut through the room like a blade through soft skin.
"Father, Drake stole my lightsaber."
Everything seemed to freeze. The world stopped on its axis. He could’ve heard a pin drop. A flea sneeze. Was this what it felt like to be Clark?
Bruce hadn't moved from his tensed position. Poised to attack, unmoving as stone.
"Father?"
And just like that the moment shattered. Bruce whipped around to find his youngest and arguably most difficult son standing in the door way, blue light from the vast screen lighting up the curves of his young face. His green eyes shone defiantly but Bruce could see the growing uncertainty underneath. A room full of superhero's could do that to a kid, no matter how cynically stoic.
"Father?" Hal voiced the unanimously unasked question, eyes jumping between every adult in the room, as if expecting someone other than Bruce to claim rights the child.
Bruce ignored him, surging forward in a rapidly dwindling state of shock. His knees hit the ground and Damian went to move back, put on edge by the intense display of emotion. Bruce grabbed his small shoulders to hold him in place, roughly tugging off his cowl to look Damian in the eyes.
"What happened?" He demanded, turning the boy from side to side in search of injuries, when he found none he resumed eye contact, "Is anyone in trouble? Where's Dick?" No answer, "Damian."
Though his gaze kept flicking to the people behind Bruce he steeled his composure, straightening his back, "Drake stole my lightsaber and he won't give it back. I came to inform you personally."
A startled and confused sounding laugh caused Bruce to snap his head back around, like a black leather owl, scanning the assembly of adults now lost for words. The phone in Flash's raised grip had stopped buzzing.
Drawing himself back to his full height, vehemently protesting seven year old clutches in his arms, Bruce moved around the table. No one made any sort of protest as he reached for his phone and-
The computer screen on the wall beside him flashed, turning the glow of the room from blue to green, it displayed an incoming call from... huh. From Bruce's own contact. The only device the call could be coming from was his laptop, but that was locked and encrypted to hell and back-
"Answer," Bruce said.
The screen was immediately filled with a close up of a boys face. Fair skin and jet black hair hanging in his eyes. He moved away from the camera and the walls of Bruce's study came into view. Duke was leaning over his brother's shoulder, wringing his hands and looking significantly ruffled.
"Dad, thank god," Tim said breathlessly "Dick is going crazy looking for-" he paused, taking a moment to study his own screen, then his eye widened comically, "Why is Damian with you and- wait is that the Justice League?!"
"Tim." Bruce said sternly, a desperate need to confirm no one was bleeding out somewhere taking precedent over pleasantries, "Tell me what happened."
When Tim didn't answer, Duke flicked the back of this head, knocking the star struck look off his face enough to talk. "Right sorry, I didn't expect, uh, thought this connected to like a special bat phone or something-" he shook his head sharply, bringing himself fully to the conversation "That one," he jabbed the screen, "took off with the Batmobile. Dick's been worried sick, literally. I think he threw up in the toilet. Other than that nothing too terrible, I guess." Tim turned to the side and shouted "Stephanie! Get Dick!"
An indistinct response reached Bruce's ears before Tim was yelling back, "Just hurry!" He turned back to his camera, and gave a nervous smile.
During the lull in information bombshells, the Justice League had started to regain mental capacity. Bruce struggled to remember these were the people that dealt with threats to humanity, half their job description was 'adapting to knew information'.
Sensing their restlessness Bruce turned away from the two boys, his youngest still held up in his arms, "Look," he started not entirely sure what to say in a situation as unique and delicate as this one. Luckily he was saved from coming up with anything by an outburst of verbal activity. Apparently people took 'finding out your close friend and coworker actually has kids' quite hard.
"Bruce-" Clark started.
"What the fuck?!" Hal all but yelled,
"Language," the four Bats said in unison.
"Don't language me Mr Secret Family! Explain. Right now."
"Time and place, Hal," Bruce rolled his eyes, feeling far lighter knowing that his family wasn't in life threatening peril, regardless of the fact one of his biggest secrets had been exposed. Now instead of dismembering Green Lantern, he'd settle for tripping him if he walked past.
"The time and place is now Bruce-"
"Why didn't you tell us-"
"They're so young-"
"No way you're a dad!"
"Cease these questions," the boy perched on Bruce's forearm said, seeming to have overcome any feelings of childlike intimidation. Damian turned to Bruce, small hand braced on his father's chest, the other pointing over his shoulder at Tim. "He stole my lightsaber."
"Seriously!" Tim shouted angrily, voice crackling unpleasantly through the speaker, "that's the reason- you were hitting me with it-"
"You deserved it-"
"Boys!" Bruce said loudly, trying not to feel any hypocritical irony. He addressed his teammates "I thought it safer to keep their existence hidden. I didn't mean for you to find out this way." A flimsy uncreative excuse, sure, but definitely sounded better than 'it was none of your god damn business, I cherish these children too much to justify any of you knowing about them and therefore my Achilles heel, please and thank you'.
"Yeah ok," Hal said, "but surely we'd know if Bruce Wayne adopted- what was it? five kids-"
"Sevenish," Duke's voice corrected.
"It pays to have money," Bruce said before anyone could ask what Duke meant by ‘ish’. Tim nodded solemnly.
A sudden thump could be heard on Tim's end and the screen blurred, only to refocus on a very disheveled looking Dick, the blond of Steph's hair disappearing from the frame.
"Dad," he almost sobbed, "I'm sorry, I know we're not meant to contact you like this, but I called and you didn't answer your phone and Tim and Duke said they could hack into your hidden contacts or something, so I said yes because Damian was missing and I thought something terrible had happened to you-"
"Dick, deep breaths," Bruce said gently, settling fully into his role as parent of seven, "it's alright, Damian's safe. Everything is ok."
If his kid didn't look on the verge of tears before, he certainly did now, "He took the Batmobile, Bruce."
Damian shifted in Bruces arms as eyes turned to him, "I know how to drive-"
"No, Damian, you're seven," Bruce scolded, the familiar paternal fear coming back. He ignored any flabbergasted muttering from his colleagues, "that was foolish and unsafe. I put Dick in charge, which means you have to listen-"
"But-"
"No buts" Bruce said, in a tone that made it law, "I'm very disappointed. We'll talk about this more later," he turned back to the screen, "I'll be there as soon as I can, is everything else ok till i get back?'
"I-" Dick started before the laptop was seemingly snatched from his hands.
The screen showed a blurred shaky image of the hallway and there was the pounding of footsteps.
"Jason!" Dick's screeching was drowned by a delighted laugh as the image stopped swirling and Bruce was met with an impish grin plastered onto the face of yet another black haired child.
"No waaaaay," Jason gasped, eyes widening and could be seen flitting between each member of the Justice League, "I though Steph was lying!"
"Jason," Bruce snapped, fearing only slightly for his laptop, "give me back to Dick."
Jason ignored him. No surprises there, "Woah is that Wonder Woman!" He started running again, "Cass! Cass! Its Wonder Woman!"
Deaf to his fathers protests Jason hunted down his sister and shoved the device in her face. Blinking in surprise, her dark eyes found her favourite hero easily. She smiled and waved enthusiastically.
Diana, in all her glory and wisdom, waved back, "Hello little one, it is nice to meet you. And also you, fast child."
Jason popped back into view, face pressed against Cassandra's, "Oh my god Bruce! Wonder Woman thinks I'm fast!"
Bruce felt as if he owed Diana a gift basket or something. He readjusted his grip on Damian and the boy tightened his hold around his father's neck. Pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to ward off a headache, Bruce attempted once more to 'long distance' parent, "Jason, Cass, can you please take me back to your brother?"
Cass nodded at the same time Jason rolled his eyes. Bruce thought he'd won until another little girl's voice rang through the speaker, "Move over Jason, I wanna see."
Steph, all teeth and wild blond hair, pushed against Jason sandwiching him between the two girls.
Bruce heard a coo, he wanted to cry.
"Holy shit," she grinned, Bruce didn't even scold her.
"You must be Stephanie," Diana said. The girl in question practically squealed in delight.
"Dad wouldn't let us meet you, you know," Steph said matter of factly, as usual giving far more information than strictly necessary. Cass nodded. "Even though we told him you were the best hero!"
Clark barked out a surprised laugh. Bruce wasn't even going to attempt to regain control of the conversation. He settled for shooting an icy glare in Clark’s direction. There was no way the demons he called children would listen to him over Wonder Woman anyway.
"Is that so?" The Amazonian smirked.
"I think he's embarrassed of us," Jason sneered, "worried we might stuff up your rep, isn't that right Brucie?"
Hal and Barry were what could only be called giggling. Damian was glaring at them. "Your coworkers are unimpressive," he said, unbothered by his volume.
"Damn that one really takes after you, Bruce," Barry chuckled,
"My name is Damian you walking red flag-" the boy spat out before Bruce quickly clapped a hand over his mouth.
"Damian, don't be rude," he said over Hal, who was all out cackling and nearly on the floor. He really needed to get back to the manor.
"Damian!?" Jasons voice crackled at the volume. Evidently he'd been too focused on his favourite hero to notice his brother was among them. "You little shit," he laughed in disbelief "how the fuck-"
Cass cut him off with a smack to the head. Language, she signed.
Diana cleared her throat and stepped closer to the vast monitor, "young ones, while meeting you has been an honour may I suggest you abide by your father-"
"Jason!" Dick's voice, shaking in anger, cut sharply through the speaker. The noise made the three kids on the screen jump in fright as their brother entered the room they were hiding in. Bruce was right about his kid's innate ability to push buttons. "You jackass!"
"Language," said jackass grinned nervously before jumping abruptly to his feet and making a break for it.
In the flurry of movement the laptop was dropped to the ground. Bruce winced at the loud thud. Miraculously the call stayed connected and the screen was angled perfectly for Bruce to get a full view of Dick tackling Jason to the ground as he tried to flee the room.
Cass and Steph had moved forward, not to stop the ensuing fight, but rather to get a better view.
"Richard," he said sharply. No one on the other end of the call acknowledged him.
The two boys rolled into a bookcase which shook threateningly, raining a few novels down on the pair. Jason grabbed what appeared to be a copy of Persuasion and hit Dick in the face with it.
"Jason!" Bruce said louder, his voice however was no doubt drowned by the angry sounds of a teenage brawl. Great. Just- great.
Dick grabbed Jasons arms, securing the weapon just like Bruce had taught him. Nice to see his training was being put to good use. Man, he needed a generous glass of whisky.
"Father, while I consider this behaviour embarrassing, I think it best if we let it play out naturally," Damian's eyes were glued to the screen, following the movements with an intense focus and a slight vindictive gleam.
"Who you going for little man," Hal grinned at Damian. He seemed suddenly unaffected by the secret-family scandal in the face of young violence.
"I've got my money on Dick, honestly," Barry said, "kid's fueled by pure rage."
"If you're quite done being entertained by my children fighting each other," Bruce started, reaching max levels of irritability once more. Any calm that came with knowing his family was relatively safe had been spoiled by the absolute stress of everything else that followed.
"You asshole! Asshat! Asswipe!" Dick was yelling again. He had Jason lying flat on his stomach, arm twisted behind his back and secured from where the older boy sat on top of him.
"That's it Dickhead! You almost used a naughty word, good job!" Jason cheered, apparently being pinned to the floor wasn't enough to stop him goading his brother. There was a very thin line between stupid and brave, Jason walked it daily.
"I swear to god Jason-"
The other two boys appeared in the door way, breathless and wide eyed. Duke’s vision immediately honed in on the discarded device on the plush carpet. He jumped over his older brothers and scrambled infront of his onscreen version of Bruce, both anxious and exasperated in equal measure.
"Bruce, please hurry-"
"Dad did you know Dick threw up?!" Jason's screech was cut off by angry denial on Dick's part.
A stray book came flying in Duke's direction. He ducked. The screen went dark.
Bruce stared a moment longer. The monitor had gone back to displaying Clark's slide show of a thousand yawns. He ignored Damian's squirming and turned to his colleagues, all of which had decided to readopt the 'scandalised and answer-entitled' look. He scowled and finally got to snatch the phone harshly from Barry's loose grip.
"Next time, let me answer my calls," he snapped with more venom then strictly necessary to quell any possible questions.
And with a swoosh of his midnight cape he was gone.
He had some children to sedate.