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The Justice League was prepared for a lot of things. Alien invasions, supervillains, all kinds of worst-case scenarios.
Unfortunately, they didn’t have any protocol for when two brightly-dressed teenagers break into the Watchtower, which apparently was an oversight when coming up with procedures.
Hal had created glowing green chains to secure the two of them sitting on the floor back to back, but they had no clue where to go from there. Hal, Barry, Ollie, and Dinah exchanged a few awkward glances as the kids whispered quietly to each other.
The taller one cleared his throat, then looked up at the Leaguers. “Listen, this is all a big misunderstanding,” he said with a slight grin. “Just let us go and we’ll be on our way.”
“I think you understand why we can’t do that,” Barry responded. The kids frowned at him.
“Listen, we just want to talk,” Dinah said, kneeling down to their level. “If you can tell us how you guys got up here, we can let you go.”
“How did you get up here?” the shorter one shot back, narrowing his eyes.
Dinah raised an eyebrow. “I’m a Justice League member. I have access. You don’t.”
“How do you know I’m not a Justice League member?”
“You’re 10.”
“I’m 12. ”
“12-year-olds still can’t be Justice League members,” Dinah pointed out, standing back up and crossing her arms.
“Can you at least tell us your names?” Ollie stepped forward to ask.
“That’s classified,” the 12-year-old snarked.
The other kid elbowed him and shook his head. “That’s not classified,” he scolded. “I’m Nightwing, and that’s Robin.”
“Those aren’t names,” Ollie frowned.
“Okay, well, our actual names are classified,” he responded sheepishly.
Ollie rolled his eyes. “Anyone else wanna try?”
Hal sighed and stepped forward. “Alright, guys, we don’t want this to be any more difficult than it has to be,” he said. “Just tell us why you’re here, and we’ll let you go.”
The boys blinked up at him. “What do your constructs taste like?” Robin asked, completely ignoring the question.
Hal raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean, if I licked these chains, what would they taste like?”
“Um… they’re just powered by light, so… nothing.”
The kid scoffed. “Nothing tastes like nothing, ” he said. “I can lick a wall and say it tastes like nothing, but really it just tastes like wall.”
“That’s really not how the ring works–”
“What if you, like, willed it to taste like something?” he asked. “If you created a burger with the ring and really focused on it tasting like a burger, would it?”
Hal blinked. “I… I guess I’ve never tried.”
“We’re getting way off topic here,” Barry said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We just need to know where you guys came from.”
“We came from Earth,” the two said in unison, then looked at each other and snickered.
“Jinx,” Nightwing said with a smirk.
“It’s brotherly telepathy,” Robin responded, mirroring his grin.
Dinah sighed. “This is getting us nowhere.”
“If you just let us go, we’ll get out of your hair and be on our merry way,” Nightwing said, blinking his eyes innocently.
“Again, you know we can’t do that,” Barry said. Nightwing frowned. Robin shifted and mumbled something under his breath, then the next thing any of them knew, Superman had flown into the room right in front of them.
“Robin, don’t try to bite through the chains, you’ll hurt yourself,” Clark chided, clearly trying to hold back laughter.
“Shit,” the kid huffed. “I forgot about super-hearing.”
“Hey, and watch the language.”
Hal looked between Clark and the kids, his eyes widening. “No fuckin’ way,” he said. “Supes, are these your kids?”
The kids blinked up at him, then burst out in wild laughter. Clark looked bewildered. “My what?”
“I see it,” Ollie chimed in. “The bright clothes, the dark hair, they look just like you.”
That just made the kids laugh even harder. “Man, I wish Superman was my dad,” Nightwing wheezed.
“Nice deduction skills, Lantern,” Robin added after he finally stopped laughing. “Really, I don’t know how you cracked that case.”
“Jesus, kid, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were Batman’s kid,” Hal huffed, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms.
That just made the laughter erupt even harder than it had before. Clark was obviously trying hard not to react, but the way he was pursing his lips to hide a smile gave it away. Meanwhile, both of the kids nearly had tears running down their faces from how hard they were laughing. Everyone else was looking at each other, trying to figure out what had struck them all as so funny.
The laughter came to a screeching halt as the door opened and Batman appeared in the doorway, his jaw set in a frown with his cape enveloping his form. The kids looked at each other nervously for a second as Batman slowly made his way toward them.
“Hi, Dad,” Robin said with a hesitant smile. The mood of the room shifted instantly, but no one dared to say anything as Robin continued. “How are you today? Your suit is looking extra nice, by the way.”
Batman narrowed his eyes.
“And I love you?” he added. Batman still didn’t respond. “...and it was all Nightwing’s idea.”
“ What? ” Nightwing screeched.
“I wanted to have a quiet day at home–”
“Bullshit! B, he’s lying–”
“And Nightwing forced me–”
“No way! If anything, he forced me– ”
“I did not! He was–”
“I was minding my own business!”
“When have you ever– ”
“ Quiet, ” Batman growled, and the kids both snapped their mouths shut (but not before Nightwing grumbled a quiet “you’re not the boss of me, old man.”)
The room was silent for a few moments before Dinah finally spoke up. “I’m sorry, you have kids ?” she asked incredulously.
“Like, two whole kids. Real-life, breathing kids,” Ollie added.
Batman didn’t acknowledge any of them, still watching his kids intently. The boys didn’t even break eye contact.
After a moment, Batman’s frown deepened. “Where is she.”
Nightwing blinked innocently. “Where is who?”
Batman stared at him for a bit longer, then closed his eyes to rub a hand across his face. Hal and Barry looked at each other nervously, watching Batman like a creature in the wild about to strike.
Batman straightened up, then called out, “ Batgirl! ”
“You’re fucking kidding, there’s another?” Hal mumbled right before another teenager, a girl with red hair tucked under a cowl similar to Batman’s, stepped out from the small kitchen they had on the Watchtower with a spoon in a jar of peanut butter.
“Hi, Batman, how are you? You look nice today,” she said with a smile.
“I already tried that,” Robin called out.
“Damn,” Batgirl frowned and dipped her spoon back into the peanut butter, then shoved the spoonful in her mouth. “B, why did you buy off-brand peanut butter? There’s no way you can’t afford the good kind.”
“I bought it,” Ollie responded defensively. “I won’t support some filthy capitalist brand that destroys the environment and exploits their workers just for some peanut butter .”
Batgirl blinked at him, then walked over with her arm outstretched. “It is so nice to meet you, Green Arrow. My name’s Batgirl, and I have so many thoughts about overthrowing large corporations in favor of smaller companies that don’t exploit labor for their product, and I’d love to ch–”
“ Batgirl ,” Batman interrupted. “We agreed you won’t overthrow any corporations until you graduate college, right?”
She huffed and crossed her arms. “Fine. But it’s coming up,” she warned, then walked over to sit next to where Nightwing and Robin were still chained up on the floor and offered Nightwing a spoonful of peanut butter.
“Lantern, you can remove the restraints,” Batman said. “I can vouch that these three are trustworthy, despite the fact that they broke in without permission, ” he added pointedly.
The chains disappeared, and Batman took a step closer to the kids.
“I still have so many questions,” Barry sighed. “You have three kids?”
“No, I’m not his kid,” Batgirl answered with a placating smile. “I’m just a friend of the family.”
Ollie raised an eyebrow. “You have a friend of the family fighting crime wearing your logo?”
“It’s not a logo,” Batman responded. “It’s a symbol.”
“That’s not the point at all.”
“The point is that these kids are mine, and I will handle–”
“ Wonder Woman!” Robin screeched, interrupting Batman’s scolding. Everyone turned around to see that Diana had entered the room, looking around to take in the scene in front of her. She quickly caught Robin’s eye with a smile.
“Hello, Robin,” she greeted brightly, opening her arms. The kid shot like a bullet to jump and tackle her in a hug. “What are you doing here?”
“We broke in,” the kid told her proudly. Diana laughed.
“Impressive work.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Batman sighed.
Diana rested Robin on her hip like a child and shrugged. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” she said. “It couldn’t have been easy to get here on their own, I think hard work should be rewarded.”
“It wasn’t that hard,” Batgirl boasted. “All I had to do was get into the mainframe and enable the teleporter to give us access.”
“Okay, pause,” Hal interrupted, holding one hand up and rubbing his forehead with the other. “Not only can this teenager hack into the Watchtower– ”
“I’m not a teenager.”
“Whatever. She hacks into the Watchtower, we find out that fuckin’ Batman has kids, and Superman and Wonder Woman have known all along?”
“How’d you know that I knew?” Clark asked.
“First of all, you were not subtle,” Hal hissed. “Second of all, you’re giving Nightwing a piggyback ride right now! ”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Nightwing said from his place on Superman’s shoulders.
Batman let out another long-suffering sigh. “Nightwing, Robin, sit back down with Batgirl, we’re not done talking,” he commanded. The boys waved goodbye to Clark and Diana respectively, then sat back down on either side of Batgirl. Robin took the peanut butter jar out of her hands and shoved a spoonful in his mouth.
Batman looked at the three of them for a tense moment, his gaze flicking back and forth between the kids before landing on Batgirl. “Honestly, Batgirl, I expect it from these two, but I’m surprised you let them drag you into it.”
Nightwing and Robin gasped loudly in unison.
“We did not drag her into it!” Nightwing yelled.
“ She’s the bad influence! It was her idea!” Robin agreed, crossing his arms.
“It was not my idea!” Batgirl defended. “ You were the one that said you had never gone to space!”
“And you were the one who said ‘Well, you know, I bet I can hack into the Justice League’s systems and get us onto the Watchtower,’” Robin recalled in a mocking voice.
“You agreed! You can’t pin this all on me!”
“All of you, stop, ” Batman interrupted. The three of them stopped and looked up at him with wide eyes. “I don’t care whose idea it was. Can any of you tell me what you’ve learned from this?”
“Disable the motion sensors in the vents before crawling through them,” Nightwing answered.
“Check for security cameras before entering an area,” Robin listed after him.
“Some places have security in place that’s not listed on any blueprints,” Batgirl added.
Batman stared at them for a moment, then nodded. “Good. Don’t forget that no security measures are infallible, there are always ways to bypass them. Even somewhere as secure as the Watchtower.”
" What ?” Barry shouted.
“ That’s the lesson?” Dinah added, putting her hands on her hips. “Not ‘don’t break into highly secure facilities for fun’?”
“They’re going to do it no matter what I say,” Batman growled. Nightwing nodded silently in agreement. “It’s better that they know how not to get caught.”
“Besides, we do so much worse than break into buildings,” Robin added brightly. “I have Batman’s approval to break people’s bones every night!” he said in a tone that was way too happy for the words he was saying. Diana gave him a thumbs-up, then lowered her hand as Batman glared at her.
He turned his gaze back to the kids. “And Batgirl, don’t abandon your partners once they get caught. If you start with a team, you end with a team.”
Batgirl groaned. “I didn’t abandon them,” she grumbled. “They were perfectly safe. It’s not like the Justice League was going to hurt them.”
“Hold on, I’m still processing this,” Ollie interjected, dragging a hand down his face. “How long have you had kids?”
Batman blinked, then turned to Nightwing. “How old are you?”
“19.”
“In that case, 10 years.”
“That raises a lot more questions than it answers.”
“You can ask them some other time,” Batman said. “Right now, these three are going back home, because I’m sure they forgot to tell Agent A that they’d be leaving.”
“Shit,” Robin mumbled.
“Language.”
Batman led the three kids back to the teleporter as the League watched in awe and confusion. Robin waved goodbye to them as they walked over.
“Hold on!” Ollie called out, taking a few quick steps closer. He looked Batgirl in the eyes and asked, “Do you think you could hack into Amazon’s headquarters?”
Batgirl grinned at him. “Definitely.”
He grinned back and nodded. “We’ll keep in touch,” he said conspiratorially.
With that, the Bats left the Watchtower, leaving the rest of the League (excluding Clark and Diana) to look at each other and decide if that really just happened, or if they all had a weird collective hallucination.
“Batman has kids, ” Barry whispered. It felt like they had already said it a thousand times, but it still didn’t feel right.
Dinah walked over and lightly flicked the side of Ollie’s head. “I can’t believe you only spent 5 minutes with Batman’s kids before scheming against corporations with one of them,” she teased.
“Hey, if the opportunity arises, who am I not to take it?”
“I don’t know how to feel about Spooky with kids,” Hal said, skepticism dripping from his expression.
“Oh, don’t worry about them,” Diana said, waving a hand dismissively. “He loves those kids.”
Clark nodded. “Trust me, when it’s just them, he’s a huge softie.”
“ Bullshit, really?”