Chapter Sixteen – Justice League Universe

A/N: I've been looking forward to writing these next few chapters for a while now. :)

"I don't understand why you just won't let me watch Ko tonight."

Bruce glares at Clark as he heads towards the cave entrance. "Because you're already set up for monitor duty on the Watchtower."

"I can switch with someone else Bruce."

"No," Bruce says, turning to him and holding up a finger. "That isn't going to happen." He turns back around and continues heading to the cave.

Clark sighs, exasperated. "Bruce, I can't help it if Alfred's flight got cancelled and so he can't be here to watch Ko but I can switch with someone perfectly fine if you're so desperate to get out there as Batman tonight."

"You don't get it Clark." Bruce opens the grandfather clock and descends the stairs into the cave. "I've told you, I'm not going to have what happened at Teresa's happen again, not if I can stop it. And you, you haven't been on monitor duty up on the Watchtower for at least one and half months. I haven't been even longer. It unacceptable Clark."

"Then who is going to watch Ko? Because Dick is back in Blüdhaven, Jason said it's really important for him to go out tonight as Red Hood, and Tim is not only going out with you but he's too young to stay with Ko anyways." Bruce can hear the frustration in Clark's voice. "You are so desperate to get back into the swing of things that you aren't thinking about Ko."

Bruce whirls on him, angry. "Don't you dare tell me I'm not thinking about him. I think about him constantly, about all my boys." He turns, starts walking angrily to the case that holds his Batman suit.

Clark makes a frustrated sound from behind him but Bruce ignores it. "I just don't understand why you are so insistent about me doing monitor duty tonight. It's just monitor duty Bruce."

Bruce groans, his anger growing. "It's the slacking off Clark," he yells. "People are getting hurt and dying because we aren't going out there enough like we use to. Why can't you see that?"

"Why can't you see my point?"

"I do see your damn point, Kal." Clark's lips thin at the use of his Kryptonian name. "But right now, that point doesn't matter. What matters is being there for our cities and for the League."

"So what, those are more important than our family now?" Clark crosses his arms, clearly trying to keep his anger under control. "I thought we had this conversation already."

"No!" Bruce opens the case and pulls out his suit. "My family is always more important…" Bruce sighs, trying to reign in on his anger. He can feel the anger coming off of Clark in waves. "But that's what gets people killed. That gang war, something that I could have stopped, that's important too."

"I'm not saying that's not important. It is. That's why I'm letting you go out tonight. But I don't need to be up on the Watchtower tonight, Bruce. I can easily switch to monitor duty tomorrow, when Alfred is back."

Bruce says as calmly as he can while pinching the bridge of his nose, "No." Clark throws his hands up in exasperation. "It's important that you no longer switch shifts with people and put it off. They need to see that Superman is there for them."

Clark is silent, looking at him with so much anger in his eyes that Bruce is surprised they're not glowing red. "Fine Bruce," he says with a shake of his head. "Fine, you win once again." He begins to float off and Bruce almost feels guilty now that he realizes Clark is angry enough to not even give him a goodbye kiss. What if it's the last time they kiss each other? "You deal with figuring out who is going to watch Ko. I'm going to the Watchtower because apparently they need me oh so badly." Then he's gone, flying out of the cave in an angry puff of wind.

Bruce sighs and looks to the Bat suit in his hands. He was hoping Clark would help him find someone to watch Ko once their argument was over but apparently Bruce pissed him off enough to make Bruce do it by himself. Bruce carries the Bat suit with him to the computer, sets it down on the back of the chair, and brings up a list of original Leaguers. Rubbing his face tiredly, he looks through it and finally decides to go with the one who already has experience in watching Ko.

He allows the computer to call the house phone number of his pick, listening to the ring. On the third one, the phone is picked up. "Hello?"

"Wally, it's me Bruce."

"Oh hey, Ba-Bruce! What can I do for you?"

"I need to ask you a favor."

There's a pause, as if Wally is trying to figure out why Bruce is asking and why he's doing it so nicely. "…Okay…"

"Are you available to watch Ko tonight? It'll be all night." Then, for some reason, Bruce feels compelled to explain more. Probably because he knows Wally will ask anyways. "Clark has monitor duty tonight on the Watchtower and I need to go out as Batman. Alfred is stuck in England until tomorrow afternoon and none of my boys who are old enough to watch him are home so I need someone to watch Ko for me."

There's another long pause and then, "You're… you're asking me to watch the little guy again?" Bruce makes a small confirmative sound. "Really? I get to watch him again? I bet he's gotten so much bigger since the last time I saw him! Oh wow, thank you Ba-I mean Bruce! I can't believe this!"

"I'll take that as you can."

"Yeah, sure, of course, no problem. As long as no emergency comes up, I'll be staying in all night."

"Wally," Bruce starts. "There's something you need to know beforehand." Bruce then goes on to explain how Ko has developed some powers and hasn't got control over them.

"Hey, no problem Bruce. We'll be staying inside obviously, so flying is no problem and I heal quickly."

"Just… still be careful Wally."

Wally, when he answers, sounds surprised that Bruce told him such a thing. "Yeah, sure thing, I will."

"I'll be there shortly to drop him off then." Bruce then hangs up before Wally can go into another round of excitement. He heads back up to the Manor where Tim is currently playing with Ko on the floor. Bruce explains what is going to be going on, gathers Ko up, and then tells Tim he'll be back in a bit. Then, a quick flight in the Batwing brings him to Keystone where he then goes to Wally's apartment. Knocking on the door, he waits for the speedster to answer.

It doesn't take long. "Hey Bruce." Wally then says in his baby voice, "Hey there little guy." Ko seems to recognize him even though he hasn't seen Wally in a good three months, and smiles widely at him. Wally laughs. "I think he missed me."

Bruce rolls his eyes and steps into the apartment. "I don't have a lot of time Wally." He hands him Ko's carrier and the baby bag. "He's pretty good about sleeping through the night so you shouldn't have a problem once you put him down to sleep."

"Where do you want him to sleep?" Wally asks as he takes the offered stuff.

"In your bed if that is okay with you?"

Wally's eyebrows scrunch. "Are you, like, feeling okay Bats, because when do you ask stuff instead of demanding it?"

With another eye roll, Bruce snarls and says, "He is going to sleep in your bed Wally, is that clear?"

Wally only grins and laughs, picking Ko up out of his carrier. "There you go." Bruce's lips twitch up a bit at Wally's enthusiasm, amused by the speedster. "Anyways, I've got things covered here B-man if you need to leave now."

Bruce walks up to Wally and Ko and presses a kiss to Ko's head. "You be good for him, okay?" Ko reaches up with one hand and places it gently on Bruce's cheek, blinking blue eyes at him. Bruce smiles and pulls away. "Thank you Wally."

"Anytime, Bats." Wally salutes him and Bruce snorts, walking out of the apartment. He makes his way back to Gotham and then gathers Tim up this time in order to go change into their night gear. Once dressed, the two of them head out.

On the patrol, Bruce calls the Watchtower. "Superman speaking."

"Superman," Bruce waits a second to see if Clark is going to cut the line off on him. When it doesn't happen, he continues. "I thought you would like to know our son is at Flash's."

There's a pause and Bruce can practically feel the anger that Clark still has through the line. "Thanks for letting me know Batman." Just as Bruce is about to say something else, maybe apologize, Bruce isn't sure, the line cuts off. Maybe Clark knew that Bruce would tell him where Ko is at and that's why he didn't cut it sooner but it still hurts a bit when Clark finally does.

With what feels like the hundredth sigh that night, Bruce tells Tim, "Come on, this way."

Bruce starts in Teresa's neighborhood. He wants to make this neighborhood one of his regular routes from now on. Before, he would only visit this place once in a while when something would crop up. But knowing that there are now gangs hanging around here and that they've gotten violent, he needs to step it up.

He eventually makes it to Teresa's apartment building and sees through the window her and her mom sitting in the living room, watching TV. During the weekend, he had called Teresa and had set up a time to meet with her mom today. The meeting went well and her mom agreed to him helping her with a job and new place to live. She should be expecting a call from his Wayne Foods branch for a job interview. He told the mother to not stress about the interview as it's already guaranteed that she'll get the job. He just wants the employer that works that branch of Wayne Enterprises to get to know her. Bruce has also already set them up with a realtor agent that will contact them in the next couple of weeks to discuss potential places to live. Bruce will supply them the money in order to buy whatever place they want and Teresa's mother promised she wouldn't pick any place that costs too much despite Bruce telling her not to worry about it. Either way, he's glad he can help them.

Bruce and Tim, after taking out a few guys in that neighborhood, move on and for the rest of the night it's pretty peaceful. For once, there's no breakout from Arkham and the two only have to deal with low life thugs. Once the clock hits four in the morning, Bruce calls it a night and him and Tim head home. He sends Tim upstairs to bed, Tim complaining about having to get up in two hours to get ready for school. In hindsight, Bruce probably should have sent him home hours ago and finished up patrol himself. But it's been so long since he's been out with Tim that he was enjoying it and totally forgot that the kid would need to go to school. Bruce decides to send Tim a quick text message telling him to just sleep and not worry about school. He figures Tim can take a day off.

Bruce gets onto the computer and starts to log in his report of the night when he hears a whizzing sound. Confused, he set the computer to scan the cave and as it does this, he gets up to scan the cave himself. He looks around but doesn't see anything even as the whizzing increases. A quick alarm on the computer sounds and Bruce turns to it. There's some kind of anomaly happening in the cave.

He goes to press a few buttons on the keyboard to figure out what the anomaly is when a voice from behind him says, "Hello Bruce."

His hand pauses above the keys, his eyebrows scrunching together. He turns to face the voice. "Clark what-" He stops mid-sentence, his breath catching in his lungs and his heart stopping. Clark is standing in front of him, wearing a white and black suit of his red, blue, and yellow one with a wicked smile on his face. Behind him are the other Justice Lords, same evil smile on their face. Bruce sends a quick look to the entrance of the cave and hopes Tim doesn't decide to come back down for some reason. He then looks back to the Justice Lords. "How did you get here?"

Lord Superman takes a step forward. "It was as easy as building another portal." He then looks behind him to the other Lords. "I'll handle this. You all stay out of it." Lord Green Lantern snorts and folds his arms across his chest but the others don't react. Instead they stand there and watch. Bruce notices Lord Batman is missing from the group. He has a bad feeling about that.

"Where's your Bruce?" he dares to ask.

Lord Superman flinches and something flashes in his eyes only to be quickly replaced by anger. "None of your business." Lord Superman squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head, taking a deep breath. "He couldn't come right now."

"But he's alive?" Bruce tries to discretely reach for the button that will alert the Watchtower.

Lord Superman sees this, however, and uses his heat vision to fry the keyboard and computer. "Don't you dare call for help," he snarls and then answers Bruce's question. "And, of course, he's alive. He's just sleeping right now." Bruce really doesn't want to know what Lord Superman means by sleeping. "H-He'll be fine." Lord Superman shakes his head as if to clear it. "Just fine, you'll see."

"What do you want then?" Bruce asks even though he already knows.

A wide, malevolent smile spreads across Lord Superman's face. "My son Bruce." He takes another threatening step towards him and the smile disappears to a snarl. "Where is he?"

"I don't know. I gave him up for adoption."

"You wouldn't do that." Lord Superman rushes him, grabbing a hold of his neck and squeezing hard enough to cut off Bruce's air supply. He yells, "You wouldn't do that!"

Bruce grabs a hold of Lord Superman's wrist, trying futility to pry his hands away. "It's… true."

"Ahh!" Lord Superman throws him across the room. "No! I know you. You wouldn't put a half Kryptonian up for adoption to just anyone. You know where he is." He stalks to Bruce. "I just want my son and then we'll leave."

"I don't know where he is." Bruce slowly gets to his feet.

Lord Superman punches him and Bruce goes flying again. "Stop lying! You're just like my Bruce and my Bruce wouldn't do that! Not in a universe that doesn't know how to handle omegas and not when he is half Kryptonian!"

Lord Superman grabs a hold of his neck again, choking him. "Not… lying. I don't… I don't…" Bruce tries to breath in some air but can't. Lord Superman slams him against the desk so hard that Bruce can feel two of his ribs break. He groans the best he can in pain. Lord Superman drags him back up and does it again. If Bruce could breathe, he knows the wind would have been knocked out of him by the sheer force. Things are starting to get blurry and black around the edges when Lord Superman throws him across the room for the third time. Bruce lands heavily on his shoulder, dislocating it. He can't hold back the yelp from the pain. Bruce carefully pulls himself up with his good arm. "So he's an omega? How do you know?"

Lord Superman tsks. "How do you think? Omega babies form the appropriate reproductive organs around week ten of the pregnancy. I was able to see them with my x-ray vision whenever I x-rayed Bruce."

"You looked?"

"Of course, I did. I didn't want any surprises."

"Why didn't you tell Bruce?"

"He didn't even want to know the gender of the baby. What makes you think he would want to know whether he was an alpha, omega, or none at all before puberty?" He reaches Bruce again. "Now, I'll ask again. Where is my son?"

Bruce stands defiantly. "Even if I did know… I would never tell you."

Lord Superman's hand curls up into a tight fist and a red glow starts emanating from his eyes. "You will tell me. I know you know where he is." Bruce keeps his mouth shut, not saying a word which angers Lord Superman. Lord Superman back hands him and Bruce falls to the floor, spitting blood out. There's a kick to his side before he's being dragged up by his shirt. He's lifted up so far that his feet don't even touch the ground. "What are you going to do when he goes into heat, huh? You have no alphas here and no suppressants."

"Last I knew," Bruce says, struggling to get the words out. "You weren't an alpha and yet you satisfied your Bruce just fine."

Lord Superman throws him again and this time he slams against the cave wall, hitting his head hard enough to make his vision go black for a few seconds. Bruce draws in a shaky breath as he slumps to the floor. "Of course, he would tell you I'm not an alpha." Lord Superman scoffs. "Do you realize," he begins as he starts to Bruce once again. "That I thought I wouldn't be able to have biological children?" Bruce tries to get up but his limbs are shaking and weak along with his head now pounding. When he reaches up to the back of his head and pulls his hand away, he sees blood on the tips of his fingers. "I was so excited when Bruce got pregnant. I thought we both defied the odds. I was happy. Then Luthor…" Lord Superman squeezes his eyes shut again, hands clenched so tight his knuckles are white. When he opens his eyes, there's pure rage in them, his eyes a red glow once again. "Then you and Bruce took him from me! How could you take him from me! My son!"

Lord Superman's hands are around his neck again. "If you won't tell me where he is," he squeezes and Bruce's air is cut off, "then I'll find him myself." Lord Superman lets him go and Bruce slumps even further to the ground, his head lolling to rest on the floor. He watches with blurry eyes as Lord Superman addresses the rest of the Justice Lords. "We'll search the whole damn world if we have to. Let's go." And then Bruce is watching them fly out of the cave while tasting blood that is pooling in his mouth and his vision going black.

A/N: I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Thanks for reading. :)