Chapter Seventeen – Justice League Universe

A/N: I just realized that this story is basically just one big custody battle between Lord Clark and regular Clark/Bruce.

Keystone City is also located in Kansas. The things you learn when writing fanfiction. But seriously, since Wally is my favorite flash, I should have already known that… shame on me…

This is the first time Clark and Bruce have been back to full time hero work since the adoption of Ko. Clark tries not to worry and so far he's managed to squash down his need to listen in on Wally and Ko as they sleep just to make sure they are okay. Clark tries to convince himself that he wouldn't be worrying so much if Alfred was the one watching Ko instead of Wally, but he also knows he's just fooling himself and that no matter what he would still be worrying just as much.

Clark glances over to the rookie he was assigned to do monitor duty with. All the new comers have to learn all the things that entail monitor duty — not that there is much to do anyways — and so they are assigned to it with one of the original seven. Though Shayera isn't with them anymore since her betrayal so maybe Clark should start thinking of them as the original six. Somehow that just doesn't seem right though.

When he first arrived to do monitor duty and saw the rookie standing there, all wide eyed and excited to do something with The Superman, Clark cursed Bruce for playing him. He hadn't known Bruce had set him up as mentor for the night and was hoping for a peaceful time spent alone. So by the time Bruce had called him to inform him of who was watching Ko, he was more than just angry at the man. Though he must admit, he is thankful that Bruce had thought about telling him where Ko is since if he had continued to stay in the dark, his worrying would be ten times worse.

Unfortunately for the rookie, Clark is pretty sure his foul mood has shown through the entire time he explained how things worked during monitor duty since Clark has never really been good at hiding his feelings. Except, apparently, for loving a certain Bat if how long it took them to get here is any indication. Now the rookie keeps shooting him wary looks, as if they want to talk to him but don't want to upset him even more. Clark feels a bit bad but is in a too bad a mood to do anything about it. Clark just hopes he hasn't stomped on the poor rookie's view of who Superman is. The last thing Clark wants to do is crush someone's dreams of their hero.

Once a few hours pass of the rookie and him just sitting there in strained silence, the rookie finally clears their throat. Clark turns to look at them, expecting for them to say something but Clark's anger must still be showing because he can see the determination draining in those wide, nervous eyes. Luckily, Clark's com-link in his ear goes off before this whole thing can become an even bigger mess.

"C-Clark?"

"Robin?" Clark answers, standing up at the scared sound of Tim's voice. "Robin, what's wrong?"

"It-It's Bruce. I don't – I don't know what – I mean, I went down to the cave because I forgot something and I just – Clark I just found him like this."

"How? How did you find him?"

"I don't know what to do – he's – I don't think he's breathing, Clark."

The panic Clark felt at hearing Tim's scared voice spikes. "He isn't breathing?" The rookie is now shooting him worried glances, getting ready to press the button that will set off the alarm to alert the other JLA members. Clark ignores the rookie. He can hear Tim crying on the com-link. He must be using Bruce's. "Robin, listen to me."

"There's so many bruises and Alfred isn't here. I don't – Clark, I don't know – Oh God."

"Robin, listen." When the kid starts to hiccup into the com-link, Clark closes his eyes, tries to take a calming breath, and says as calm as he can, "Tim, listen. Do you know CPR?"

"Yes, Bruce made sure to teach all of us."

"Do that. Do that right now and I'll be right there."

"Okay."

He turns to the rookie. "Stay here." He's then off, flying to the zeta tubes. "Tim, do you know what happened?"

He can hear the exertion that the CPR is doing to Tim but Tim answers in a heavy, shaky breath anyways. "I don't – I don't know. I just…" A sob. "I just came down here because I forgot to put my suit away properly and knew Bruce would be angry. I didn't – He didn't set an alarm off."

"Okay, okay Tim, I'm on my way now. I'm going to stay on the com-link with you though okay?" Clark figures he should stay with Tim as he sounds pretty freaked out right now. "I'm going to keep talking to you okay?"

"Okay."

Clark passes J'onn as he makes his way to the zeta tubes as fast as possible without hurting anyone. He stops in front of the Martian. "J'onn."

"Yes, Superman?"

"Call Leslie, get her up here now. Tell her it's an emergency."

"What happened?"

He's already leaving when he calls back. "It's Batman. Something's wrong." He then reaches the zeta tubes. "I need to get to Gotham right now."

"Can't," says the person in charge. "The zetas are all backed up. Busy day, you know?"

"This is an emergency." Before the man can protest anymore, Clark growls in frustration — something he must have picked up from Bruce — and flies off in the direction of the hangar. "Make sure the zeta tubes are clear for when I need to get back," he orders and the man nods in affirmation. He gets to the hangar in record time, possibly breaking a few things in the process, and sees a few people there. "Clear the hangar!" They all look at him confusedly for a split second before running off. One good thing about being one of the original seven and being Superman is that you are rarely questioned or defied by the ones that came after the first formation of the League. He opens the hangar door and flies out before it is even fully open. "Tim? Are you there?"

"Yeah." He sounds very small, as if he is a lot younger than just thirteen years old.

"Report."

"Still doing CPR. No change."

"Okay, you keep at it, Tim. You're doing fine."

"But-"

Clark cuts him off. "No buts, Tim. You're doing just fine."

"Okay."

"I need you to tell me what happened. Anything you know." Clark is almost to Earth, heading straight to Gotham.

"We…" A sniffle. "We came back from patrol and Bruce sent me up to the house to get some sleep before bed. He then texted me, telling me to just skip school since we got back so late and I wouldn't get much sleep. I was already in bed when I remembered that I didn't put the Robin suit back correctly. Bruce is such a stickler about stuff like that, so I thought I would just go back down and fix it. When I did, he was just lying there, all…" Another sob and sniffle. "All bruised and bloody. I went to him to see if he was okay but then I noticed he wasn't – he wasn't-" Tim is crying again. "I didn't hear anything, Clark, and he never set an alarm off. I don't know what happened – I don't know what did this."

"Okay Tim. It's going to be okay," Clark says even though he's not really sure if that is true. "I'm almost there. I'm reaching the Manor now." He goes in through the cave and slows his speed as he reaches Tim. As soon as he sees the thirteen-year-old on top of a motionless Bruce, performing CPR, his stomach flips and he feels sick. "Tim." He approaches the two and Tim looks up at his name. The kid's face and eyes are red and puffy, cheeks streaked with tears. "Let me see." Tim moves out of the way and Clark takes over the CPR. He'll be able to do it better than Tim seeing as, even without super strength, he's stronger than Tim. "Come on Bruce. Don't die on me. Not now, not like this." As he's blowing into Bruce's mouth, the man beneath him gasps in a breath, coming back to the living. He doesn't wake up however. Clark sighs a breath of relief.

"Is he… is he okay?" Tim asks, hesitantly.

Clark turns to him and sees the worry in Tim's whole body. "He's alive but not out of the woods yet. I'm going to bring him to the Watchtower." He picks him up and is about to call for the zeta tube when he looks back to Tim. He looks very, very small suddenly; alone in the vast, dark cave, tears still streaming down his red cheeks, and hunched into himself, worry emanating from his body in thick waves. "Go get your mask." At Tim's questioning look, he clarifies. "You're coming with us. Go on." Tim runs off and is soon back with his domino mask securely on his face. "Grab my cape and hold on tight." As soon as Tim does, Clark calls up for the zeta tube and the three of them are beamed up to the Watchtower. Clark hides Bruce's face against his chest as he flies him to the medical bay, Tim following behind him.

Leslie is already there when they enter the room. "What happened?"

"I don't know. Tim just found him like this. We had to give him CPR." Clark lays Bruce down on the bed and watches as Leslie tends to him. She doesn't ask any further questions. Tim stands near him, hand still clutching his cape so tightly, his knuckles are white. Clark puts a comforting hand on his shoulder and Tim leans into it. The top of the boy's head comes to about three quarters of the way up Clark's bicep, making it easy for him to pull Tim into his side and wrap an arm around his shoulders instead.

Once Leslie is finished hooking up Bruce to oxygen and a heart monitor along with bandaging up the bruises, she turns to them. "I have to x-ray him to see the extent of the damage."

Clark immediately uses his own x-raying abilities to save time. "He has four broken ribs, three on his right, one on his left. His shoulder is severely dislocated and it looks like he might have a concussion. His trachea is also badly bruised, probably by the force of being choked." Leslie stares and blinks at him. "Sorry," he says, hanging his head.

She sighs. "Thank you for that information Clark." She then starts to take care of the list that Clark gave her.

When she gets to resetting Bruce's shoulder, the pain manages to wake him, and he yells from the pain of his shoulder bone being snapped back into place. He's very groggy, however, and doesn't answer when Clark says a hesitant, "Bruce?" He falls back into unconsciousness almost right away. "What made him go into cardiac arrest?"

"The injuries he sustained aren't minor Clark."

"I know but… I mean, I just didn't see any of the injuries being life threatening."

"We don't always know how the body is going to handle this type of beating. Any reaction could have happened." Leslie finishes tending to him then. "He's stable now and though brief, him waking up was a good sign. I'll allow J'onn to continue monitoring him now."

"You're leaving?"

"Clark," she looks at him with sympathetic eyes. "I have a job down on Earth, you know that, and you guys just plucked me up in the middle of it. If Bruce's condition worsens, then call me and I'll come right away as long as I'm not tending to another emergency." She reaches up and pats the side of Clark's face to comfort him. She then takes her leave, finding her own way back to the zeta tubes since she's been up on the Watchtower so many times, she knows her way around it.

Clark sighs and removes his arm from Tim. He pulls a chair over to the side of Bruce's bed and sits down in it. A few seconds later, Tim comes and stands next to him. "Clark?" He looks to Tim to indicate that he can continue. He now has his mask off. "Should you call Dick, Jason, and Alfred?"

The League doesn't normally call the boys when Bruce is injured. They just call Alfred. Clark doesn't know if Alfred ever informs them but by the way Tim is looking at Bruce, Clark figures he should just go along with it. "Yeah, okay." It's almost light out in Gotham and Blüdhaven meaning Dick and Jason won't be on patrol anymore so Clark has to call them on a phone. He's always wondered how Bruce managed to get phones to work up in the Watchtower since they are in space but never bothered asking because he knows the explanation will be long and complicated.

He calls Dick first. Clark explains what is going on and then Tim grabs the phone out of his hands. "Dick?"

"Yeah, Timmy?" Clark hears Dick say.

"Will you come up here?"

There's a pause and then Dick is saying, "We don't normally. Technically you're only up there because you were there when Clark got Bruce."

"I know but… I have a bad feeling, Dick. Someone who could do this to Bruce…"

Dick must have heard the worry in Dick's voice because in the end he says, "Okay, I'll come. I'm guessing you're going to ask Jason to come up too?"

"Yeah."

There's a snort. "Good luck with that. If you do happen to convince him, you'll have to have Clark give him clearance to use the zetas and to go up since he's not allowed on the Watchtower."

"Right. Do… do you need it too."

A laugh. "No, no I don't actually. I've been up there before."

"You have?"

"Yep. I'm going to let you go, Timmy. See you when I get there."

"Alright." Tim then dials the number for Jason and that's when Clark realizes that he doesn't actually know Jason's number himself.

Jason sounds groggy with sleep when he answers. When Tim explains what happened and then asks for him to come up to the Watchtower, he snickers. "What? You want me, me, to come to the Watchtower for Bruce."

"Please Jason," Tim sounds agitated. Jason had stayed at the Manor for quite a while after coming to see Ko that first time but is now back to wherever he was staying before. In that time period, he and Bruce had managed to form a slightly better relationship than it was prior but Jason and Tim has improved even less. Though, to Clark — and he knows Bruce would disagree — there is a little bit of a noticeable change between them. Bruce would call it tolerance; Clark would call it growing. Clark supposes it doesn't matter much as long as the two can be in the same room together without killing one another, but he does wish to see their relationship improve even more just like he wishes for the same thing between Bruce and Jason.

Jason is laughing on the other end of the phone. "I should record this conversation."

"This isn't funny. Dick has already agreed to come. Jason, Bruce almost died, don't you want to see him." Jason decides to not answer that by staying silent. "Look, I have a really bad feeling about this whole thing and you know what Bruce says, trust your gut."

"He also says to have all the facts first. So which is it Timbo?"

Clark has had enough when he sees Tim's jaw tighten in anger. He takes the phone from him. "Jason, just come up. I'll give you clearance. Be ready to beam up." He ends the call and gets up from the chair. "I'll be right back." When he gets to the zeta tubes, Dick is already up in full costume. He tells the person who is in charge about the Red Hood coming up and Dick and Clark wait for him there.

It doesn't take long for Jason to be beamed up. He has his Red Hood helmet under his right arm and domino mask on his face. He whistles, looking around. "This place is bigger than I thought it was."

"Come on Jason." Clark leads them to the med bay.

"I called Alfred. I couldn't convince him to come up as well," Tim says as soon as they are in the room.

"Do you want me to try?" Clark asks.

Tim looks down at the phone in his hand and sighs. "No, it's fine."

"Wait, you'll force me to come here but not him? What makes him different?"

They all look at him and say at the same time, "He's Alfred."

Jason doesn't have a good thing to say to that so instead he walks up to Bruce's bedside, opposite side of Dick. "Who did this?"

"We don't know," Clark says as he sits back down in the chair. "No one saw what happened since he never gave out a distress signal." He sighs, remembering about Ko. "I have to call Wally." He takes the phone again and calls the speedster's phone.

Wally answers way too enthusiastically for such an early time in the morning. Now Clark knows how Bruce feels when Clark does the same thing. "Heya Clark! What's up?"

"Wally, somethings come up. You're going to have to watch Ko for a little longer if that is okay?"

"Okay? You even have to ask that?" Wally laughs joyfully. "Me and the little guy are having a blast. So far he's only flown around and broke my coffee table." Clark groans, placing a hand on his forehead. At least Wally doesn't sound angry. "It certainly was something seeing a three-month old possessing super strength." Another chuckle. "Oh, and don't worry, I didn't encourage it or anything as I assume you don't want him doing that all the time but it was awesome. Oh!" Clark hears shifting and then Ko squealing in the background. "He just woke up about an hour before you called. You want to say hi? Say hi." Clark says a quick hi to Ko and listens to the baby gurgle a laugh. Then hears some more shifting and Wally is talking again. "Like Bruce said, he slept through the whole night. Bruce didn't exactly tell me when he was coming to pick him up and only said I would have to watch him for the night since he had to go out and do his Batman thing and you had monitor duty and no one else could watch him." He takes a breath. His speech is starting to speed up so Clark has to adjust his hearing to match. "But if you're saying I get him longer that's great! I can't wait to do a whole bunch of different activities with him – uh, activities that are safe for a baby, of course. I mean, like playing with him with some of the toys Bruce packed and I can't wait to feed him. I miss feeding him a bottle. And then we can watch some of those programs on TV that they show for babies and we're going to have so much fun." His voice changes as he addresses Ko. "Aren't we, Ko?" Then he's back to his normal voice once he's talking to Clark again, once more speeding up in speech. "Have you noticed how big he's getting. He's growing too fast and-"

"Wally."

"Before you know it he's going to be a kid and then a teenager and then an adult. I'm going to miss being able to pick him up. I hope he still likes me when he gets older. Is it okay if I teach him to call me Uncle Wally?"

"Wally."

"I mean, I've kind of already started calling myself that in front of him so he should pick it up once he starts talking. Will he start talking soon? No I don't think so actually. Will you two inform me when he does? You guys have to let me see him more often. Three months is way too long. He's really grown on me and-"

"Wally!"

"Yes, Big Guy?"

"I've got to go."

"Oh… okay. I'll see you later then when you come to pick him up but take your time. Seriously, if it's going to be another three months before I see him again, I want as much time as possible with him ri-" Clark hangs up the phone, cutting him off. He feels bad about doing so, but he knows Wally could continue to go on and on and he doesn't have time for that.

"Can he watch him?" Dick asks.

"Yeah, he's fine with it." Clark leans back in the chair as he and Bruce's boys wait for the man to wake up.

At some point, Clark falls asleep. He jumps awake when a pained, frightened gasp makes its way through Clark's dream state. The heart monitor that is hooked to Bruce is going wild but not because the man is going into cardiac arrest again. Instead, it is going wild because Bruce is awake and looking around the room frantically. Clark gets out of his chair, briefly notices the boys are not in the room, and comes to Bruce's bedside.

"Hey, hey, it's okay." Clark grabs a hold of Bruce's hand. He's shaking and his eyes snap to Clark's. "You're at the Watchtower. You're okay."

"No, no." Bruce shakes his head, his voice cracking slightly. Clark has never seen him like this before. "Where's Ko?"

"He's… still with Wally. I just checked in a couple hours ago."

Bruce grabs a hold of Clark's bicep with his free hand, squeezing hard enough to hurt a regular human. "You have to go get him."

"Bruce, I don't even know what happened."

"Just go get him Clark, please. And Wally."

The desperate, fearful look in Bruce's eyes makes Clark respond. "Okay, okay, I'll go get them. It's okay." He lets go of Bruce's hand and leaves the room. He took a zeta tube down to Keystone, changed into some civilian clothes in an alley, and then made his way to Wally's apartment. Just outside the door, he can hear faint music playing.

He knocks and waits and it doesn't take long for Wally to answer. "Hey Clark! Come in, come in! Me and Ko were just dancing." Clark looks to the living room and sees Ko floating there, smiling, and waiting for Wally to come back. Wally goes to the floating baby, gathers him into his arms, and starts dancing to "Wheels on the Bus."

Clark watches, stunned, as the speedster dances and Ko laughs loudly. "Um… Wally."

"Yeah, Big Guy?" he asks on a twirl.

"Um… Bruce wants you and Ko to come to the Watchtower."

"Me?" He lifts Ko up above his head, spins, and the baby squeals loudly before Wally brings him back to his chest. "Why me?"

Clark blinks at the scene, trying to get his thoughts straight. "Uh… remember how I said something came up?" Wally nods as he jumps onto his couch, takes Ko's hand and extends his little arm as far as it will go, and starts to do the tango as soon as the song changes to one. The scene throws Clark out of his thoughts and confuses him. "…Wally? Why do you have a tango right after Wheels on the bus?"

Wally jumps off his couch, Ko squeals again and then laughs, then Wally starts tangoing around the living room. "I have my iPod set on shuffle."

"And… and you listen to tango?"

"I'm taking a class. Got to say Big Blue, Ko is the best partner I've had for it." He winks at Ko who laughs and smiles wide.

"Right…" Clark shakes his head to clear it. "Anyway, Wally, Bruce got really hurt and he won't tell me how until you and Ko are on the Watchtower."

Wally stops dancing immediately, speeds to his music to shut it off and then says as he walks past Clark — baby bag having been repacked at super speed already and slung over the speedster's shoulder — "Why didn't you say so sooner? Let's go."

Clark furrows his brows, shakes his head again, and follows.

As soon as Wally and Clark step into the med bay and Bruce looks up, Bruce sags with relief and lets out a breath. He reaches out towards Ko. "There's my baby boy." Wally immediately gives Ko to Bruce and Bruce brings him to his chest to hold him close. "Thank God you're okay and safe." Ko snuggles up against Bruce, resting his head against Bruce's shoulder.

The boys are back in the room and currently Dick is in the chair Clark had occupied earlier. That's fine with Clark, though, as he decides to sit on the side of the bed, facing Bruce. He cups his husband's cheek and strokes him with his thumb. "Bruce, what happened?"

Bruce opens his eyes, having closed them while he pressed his other cheek against Ko's head. He looks up at Clark. "The Justice Lords came."

"What?" Clark says, alarmed.

"Lord Superman is looking for Ko."

"He did this to you?" Bruce nods. "All of them came with him?"

"Lord Batman didn't."

Clark feels his stomach twist. "You don't think…"

"He didn't say when I asked. Just said that he's sleeping." Bruce rubs his eyes then winces in pain. His face is terribly swollen. "I mean, sleeping could mean dead, right? If he didn't want us to know."

Clark gets up and rubs at his own face, walking away from the bed. He feels sick to his stomach. He turns back to the bed. "We should have been there."

"How? He told us to stay here. He told us to destroy the portal. He didn't want our help."

"We should have helped anyways!" Clark yells, feeling frustrated. "Now he could… That's Ko's real father and we just let him die."

"Yeah, well, now his other real father is coming for him."

Clark sighs and is about to sit back on the bed again when a thought occurs to him. "I should have been there for you too."

"Clark."

"No," he snaps. "You sent me to monitor duty, something that I could have easily switched with someone, and because of that you got beat up. And, to make everything that much more perfect, you stuck me with some Superman fan rookie."

"Are you blaming this on me?"

Clark shrugs. "What do you want me to say, huh? I would have been there for you, to protect you, if you hadn't forced me to go to monitor duty. Something, FYI, that I was against in the first place."

"It was important to get back to work and how many times do I need to tell you that I don't need your protection?"

"You died." That shuts Bruce up. "You died Bruce. Tim found you dead in the cave." Clark can feel tears pooling in his eyes. "We had to give you CPR, Tim and I." A tear falls down his cheeks and he sees Bruce's eyes follow it. "So don't you dare tell me that you don't need my protection."

There's silence for a while and that's when Clark realizes the boys and Wally stepped out of the room while they argue. Then Bruce says calmly, "Even if you were there, the whole team of Justice Lords were there too, Clark. You would have just ended up the same as me."

"I don't care!" He sniffles. "I don't care, Bruce, we almost lost you. Tim called me, crying and-and terrified because of how he found you. When I got there, I thought the last thing we would have done is argued. Damn it Bruce, Tim was so scared for you that he begged for Dick and Jason to come up here. He even asked Alfred. If I was there when they attacked you, at least you would have had a better chance than you did without me." Clark wipes his face, sniffles, and turns away again. "Gosh Bruce, you pretend to be invincible but you're not. Your family cares about you. They love you Bruce." Clark turns back to him, hoping his eyes tell the man just how scared he was. "I love you Bruce and… and I can't lose you. We can't lose you."

Bruce takes a deep breath in and lets it out slowly. "I'm sorry I scared you all but-" he stops when he sees Clark shaking his head. "What do you want me to say Clark?"

"You're never going to get it, are you Bruce?"

"Get what?"

"That you mean more to your family, to me, than some city, than some Justice League, than some random person on the street." Bruce opens his mouth to say something, brows furrowed in confusion, but Clark continues. "You're never going to get it because it's not the same for you is it? Gotham, that stranger, Justice League missions, they all mean more to you than your family… than me."

"Clark, I've already told you that my family is important to me."

"But not important enough to care more than your city." Clark nods, trying to hold back his emotions. "I get it, I understand. That's how it was always going to be, right? I mean, that's what I was thinking back when we were just best friends. Okay fine, we're just friends. Of course, Gotham is going to come first. But then I was still thinking it even when you told me that you love me. I was even fine with it then even though a new thought came; that you'll always mean more to me than I do to you. I was actually fine with that too though it hurt."

"Then what's your problem now?"

Clark shrugs half-heartedly. "I didn't think you caring more about a city than your family would make you so heartless that you wouldn't even think about how it would affect us if you got hurt or killed." Cruel, Clark knows, but he is really not in the mood to sugar coat anything and to try and be nice about how he is feeling right now.

Silence fills the room as Bruce digests what Clark had just said. Clark can tell it hurt the man even though Bruce tries to not show it. "…Clark."

Clark holds up a hand, wipes the tears away once more, and shakes his head. "Just forget it Bruce." Clark can't meet Bruce's eyes. "We have to take care of the Justice Lords right now." Clark takes a deep breath and continues when Bruce doesn't say anything else. "If Lord Superman is looking for Ko, then he'll probably start with our family. That means I need to get to my mother."

Clark is already heading towards the door when Bruce says quietly, "And Alfred."

"I'll send Dick to get him." Then he leaves the room. He finds the boys in the cafeteria, eating with Wally. Once he explains to Dick that he needs to get to Alfred and bring him up to the Watchtower, they both head to the zeta tubes.

"Are you and Batman okay?" Dick asks as they reach the zeta tubes.

"I don't want to talk about it Nightwing." Clark gives him a small smile before beaming down to Smallville, Kansas. The first thing he sees as he enters the house, is furniture all over the place. There's broken glass, pictures fallen off the wall, and wood furniture broken to pieces. "Ma?" Clark calls, feeling his panic rising. "Ma?"

"Clark?"

"Ma!" Clark speeds to the voice and finds his mother on the floor, fairly unscathed besides a cut just above her temple. "Ma are you okay?"

"I'm fine but…" She looks around. "What a mess."

"What happened?"

"These people came to me asking where Clark was. One of them looked just like you but he had the wrong suit on."

"Those were those doppelgangers I told you about, Ma." He hugs her close. "They are very bad people. I'm so glad you're okay."

"I didn't tell them Clark." She wraps her arms around him in return. "I didn't tell them where Clark is."

He lets go of his mother and cups her face. "Thank you, Ma."

She cups his face as well. "I'm surprised he didn't hurt me more."

Thinking back to Bruce, Clark is surprised as well. "He started with Bruce and hurt him pretty bad. He must not have done the same to you because, well, no matter what universe you're still our mother." She smiles and pats his cheek. "I need to bring you up onto the Watchtower, though, so you'll be safe just in case he returns."

"Okay." He wraps his arms around his mother and beams back up to the Watchtower. Clark doesn't want his mother to see just how bad Bruce is, so after listening to see that the boys haven't left the cafeteria, he leads her there. Soon after that, Alfred joins them as well, Dick informing them that he thinks it worked in their advantage that Alfred was in England because Lord Superman hadn't known where he was.

"I'm going to go back to Bruce," Clark announces and they all wave him off.

Once there, he takes the chair again. Bruce doesn't meet his eyes and continues to hold Ko against him. After about five minutes of silence, Bruce finally starts to talk in a soft, quiet voice. "Clark, listen-" He's cut off when an alarm sounds on the Watchtower.

A/N: I keep making these chapters super long and don't end up fitting everything into it that I wanted to put in it. *sighs* Oh well, I'll just change the plan again.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed. :)