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Bryce opens the door at the knock, not at all surprised to find Kon-El standing there. Since he'd begun dating Tim, he'd become somewhat of a staple in Wayne Manor.
"Come in." She offers, stepping back from the door. "Tim's upstairs in his room. I'm fairly certain he's playing Mario Party with Dick and Jason - I'm sure they'd welcome a fourth player."
Kon shuts the door behind him, looking timid and beaten. "I, uh, actually wanted to ask you something, Miss Wayne."
"Bryce is fine." She replies, because this feels like it's significant to Kon. She gentles her voice somewhat, more the tone she used on Dick when he was fourteen or so. "What is it?"
"Could you train me to fight better?" He winces like a gunshot went off next to his ear. "I know Canary trained us at Mount Justice, and I've continued to improve since then, but I just- I still think my technique needs help."
Ah. Bryce understands now. "Do you play any sports, Kon?"
He cocks his head, perplexed. "Uh, no? I get competitive easily and it can get out of hand."
She pulls an elastic band from her wrist - a habit she's developed thanks entirely to Stephanie - and begins to tie her hair back. "Thoughts on basketball?"
"I don't mind it."
She nods. "Follow me."
| | |
Kon is panting and sweating, hands on his knees. "How is it that I'm the metahuman and you still have more stamina than me?"
Bryce raises an eyebrow and casually hands him a bottle of water and a white towel. "I've been patrolling the streets of Gotham for nearly two decades."
He accepts the gifts, guzzling the water and wiping himself down. "Yeah, I suppose so."
She tosses her head back toward the Manor. "I don't know about you, but I could do with a shower and a change of clothes."
He looks down at his own chest and winces, brought back to the feeling of sweat staring to cool uncomfortably. "Yeah, me too."
She leads him through a side door into a locker room of sorts with open shower stalls, benches and cubbies. There's hampers set between the gaps in the benches, and she goes over to the first one, standing over it as she grips the bottom of her tank top and begins to pull upward.
"Um, Bryce? What are you doing?"
She twists to look at him, tank halfway up her midriff, and considers him. "Does nudity make you uncomfortable?"
"I just- Well, you're-" He looks away bashfully, unable to find the words.
She lets her shirt go, turning to face him fully. He cautiously meets her gaze, like she's a minefield. She supposes it's a fair assumption - Batwoman is by far the hardest and coldest member of the team, the most ruthless second only to Diana.
"I started with modesty for Dick's sake - he was only eleven when I adopted him." She says, lips lifting in a smirk. "But I have nine children now that drift in and out of the Manor and use the Cave as a hub, half of which are also female. We've all seen each other completely nude - usually while stitching them up. I'm not shy, but if you are, I'll step outside."
"I'm not really either." He rubs the back of his neck. "But the showers at Mount Justice were gendered. Aside from with M'Gann-"
"Ah." Her smirk softens to a smile. "I'll wait, then."
"No!" He jumps like she tased him. "That's not what I meant. I just- I'm already dating your son. I don't want you to think I'm being weird if I look at you."
"Connor, even if you did have some kind of infatuation or crush, I wouldn't let it get so far as to humiliate you. Those feelings are natural and expected." She sighs now. "Even if that were not the case, I'd expect you, perhaps more than any of the younger members to stare."
He flinches, hard. "Why?"
In a swift and efficient movement, she pulls off her tank top and tosses it in the hamper. She's left in her sports bra - oddly, coloured highlighter pink - and leggings. Her physique is immaculate and there's not an ounce of her to waste, all smooth, clean lines and rippling muscle. But that's not what draws his attention. "Even half-Kryptonians don't scar."
She can tell by the horror on his face, the dawning realization - oddly similar to the expression Hal had the first time he saw her in the Watchtower's ICU - that she's untenably mortal.
"I've never-" Kon doesn't have the words, wandering closer from sheer horrified awe. "Tim doesn't look anything like this."
"He wouldn't." She replies. "I don't let them throw him around like me."
He reaches out a hand unconsciously, but when he's close enough to feel the heat of her skin, he yanks his hand back.
"It's okay." She assures him, taking his hand herself and placing it over the massive gouge in her side, thick and ropey. "This profession takes its dues in blood, and I pay faithfully."
"What's it from?"
"Hit by a van."
"Jesus." He hisses through his teeth. "What was on the front of it? A chainsaw?"
"Spike strips, actually. One of Joker's vans in the early days." She shrugs. "The only thing that saved me was that the spike broke off and staunched the bleeding long enough for Alfred to cauterize it."
He stares at her like he's just witnessed a miracle. "You're incredible."
"I'm an idiot." She counters. "No one sane does what I do, mortal as I am."
"What about the rest of the Bat Family?"
"They're unstable as well." She agrees. "But they were trained and protected - I was not."
It then strikes him, something popping into his head that he's never questioned before now. "Your Wikipedia page says you're only thirty-seven."
"Correct."
His eyes nearly bulge out of his head and she grins.
"Out of the founding members, I'm the youngest." She answers his unasked question. "And no, none of them knew that until they discovered my identity."
"What did Clark say about it?"
"He was embarrassed." She shakes her head. "In the early stages, I was the de facto leader, and nearly all of them came to me for advice or assistance. Clark was the worst offender - he'd ask me moral quandries constantly, usually about my abstension from killing, but not from violence. Only Diana wasn't weird about it - she was just impressed I was so accomplished so young. The age I became Batwoman is considered a preteen age on Themiscyra."
"I'm certainly blown away." He can't keep his eyes off the patchwork on her skin. "Did you go to the hospital for any of these?"
"No. Under no circumstances was anyone allowed to find out." She snorts in derision at herself. "You can see how well that policy held over the years."
He nods. "I mean, even if you didn't come out to the League, you've got so many kids - someone would have put it together eventually."
She shrugs. "The biggest disconnect is that any member of my family is publicly viewed as airheaded. You think I let aristocratic Gotham call me Brycie because I like it?"
He scrunches up his nose. "Brycie? That's terrible."
"You should see me in action." She smirks. "It would make you vomit. Probably the only one as good at the game as me is Tim."
"Not Dick?"
"Dick's a slut on the best of days." She deadpans. "He doesn't have to pretend."
He nearly chokes. "Did you really just call Dick a slut?"
"Are you saying he isn't?" She raised an eyebrow. "How many people in the Titans and the League do you think he's slept with?"
"I dunno? I know he had his relationships with Kory, Barbara and Donna."
She holds up her hand, flicking up a finger with each name she lists. "Wally West, Roy Harper, Barbara Gordon, Koriand'r, Zatanna, John Constantine, Zatanna and John Constantine at the same time, Hal Jordan, an alternate universe version of himself, an alternate universe version of me, Jason Todd-"
"Like, Red Hood Jason Todd?"
"-the very same, Will Harper, Artemis Crock and Wally West at the same time, Kaldur'am and at least six of the nine UN ambassadors to the Watchtower."
"I . . . did not know about all of them."
"That's just who he's slept with within the superhero community. He's got a reputation in Bludhaven and quite the profile in Gotham."
"There's a lot more men in that list than I thought there would be."
"Men have their own charms."
"Are you the same?"
"Bisexual?"
"I guess."
She considers it for a moment. "I suppose omnisexual is probably the better term, because I've slept with non-human individuals who don't fit into our gender binary. To keep it simple, yes, I am open to sexual encounters with any gender."
"I am learning so much about this family today." He cocks his head. "Should I even ask what non-humans you've slept with?"
"Clark, for one."
"You-" He flushes to the roots of his hair. "Really?"
"Why not? I've also slept with Diana, and Diana with her partner Steve, as well."
"Were you and Clark serious?"
Her face shudders some, that openness dampening. "Nearly. We were together for a few months at the beginning of my pregnancy with Damian. He was the first to find out I was pregnant."
"He heard the heartbeat."
"Yes." She let out a soft sigh. "I think telling him that the child wasn't his shattered whatever fragile romantic bond we had."
"Did you explain?"
"What was there to say?" She shakes her head. "Clark knew before he started messing around with me that I had romantic pasts with less than savoury characters. It didn't matter that the circumstances around Damian's conception were . . . less than ideal."
"You think he thinks you were cheating on him."
"That possibility is long passed." She interrupted coolly, her eyes hardening. "There's no sense in bringing up old news."
"Who is Damian's father?"
That brings surprise to her expression. "Tim never told you."
"To be honest, I never really thought to ask." He rubs the back of his neck with a weak smirk. "I wouldn't put it passed you to just will a son into existence if you wanted to. I guess I just sort of figured that Damian was yours and it didn't really occur to me that you'd need a man to assist with that."
"Ra's al-Ghul."
"Like, the leader of the League of Assassins?"
"Yes."
"I, uh, wasn't expecting that."
"Neither was Clark."
"Why him?"
"Like I said, Damian's conception was less than ideal."
"He raped you."
"It was Talia, actually." She sighs again. "When I initially went looking for martial arts training, before Batwoman, I wound up in the League of Assassins, and quickly rose through the ranks as Ra's' favourite. Ra's is functionally immortal, and his lastest wife had died about ten years before I joined. She'd been the only one to give him children, but they just both happened to be women. He blamed her, the fact she wasn't strong like him. Then I come along - young, ambitious and aggressive. I beat both of his daughters and his favourite assassin, consistently, and he developed an infatuation with me. He wanted me, even asked me to marry him. But I refused, and returned to Gotham. Shortly after that, to secure her place, Talia killed her sister and took up with her father's second-favourite, Deathstroke. It was then that she discovered she's infertile. Her plan to produce a strong male heir and puppeteer him under her father's nose were dead on arrival.
"Talia was well aware of my proclivities - I had recently broken up with Selina Kyle, Catwoman - and she came onto me. I circled her for months, and eventually agreed to go out with her. She drugged me, enough to blur but not knock out, and we had sex. The next day, I woke up alone on the beach. When I came home, I screened myself for STDs, toxins, trackers and nanotech. Two weeks later, when I felt ill, I ran the bloodwork again and my hormone markers read pregnant. I knew then that Talia's game had been - impregnate me in her father's stead, then attack me just after birth and take the child for her own."
"Why did you keep it? If you knew she was going to do all this, why would you put yourself and the baby through all of that?"
"To prove a point." She replies, hard as steel, and that human part of her that actually gave birth gives way to the side of her that could will a child into existence. "She may have been able to drug and inseminate me, but that's the easy part."
"Why did she leave you on the beach and not bring you back to their liar?"
"Ra's would have killed her. His affection for me wasn't . . . unreciprocated, necessarily. He would also have been aware of the kind of cage and restraints I'd need to be kept in, and he'd hate to see me waste away in such a condition. Talia knew he would be more receptive to a stolen child of mine rather than have me imprisioned."
"This is . . . completely screwed up."
"Absolutely. Why do you think Clark was so repulsed?" She shrugs. "But Talia had planned on me being reclusive during my pregnancy, and even more so during the birth. The joke was on her - I gave birth and recovered in the Watchtower."
"Jesus, Bryce . . ."
"I have a whole surgical theatre equipped for Kryptonians up there." She grouses. "It can support a birth."
"You're crazy."
"Yes." She smirks. "Shall we shower, then?"
"Do you happen to have some clothes I could borrow? I didn't bring more than this." He gestures down at himself.
"Some of Jason's spares should fit your shoulders." She eyes him critically. "Or, if you're uncomfortable, I have oversized men's clothes of me own you could borrow."
"Should I even ask why?"
"Pregnancy."
"Oh, uh, right."
Her smirk widens to a grin and the look reminds him strikingly of Tim. How the Bat family can all look related is a mystery of Gotham blood and cosmic chance he's not really sure he even wants to understand. "I'm hunted by paparazzi. The second my credit card showed up at a maternity wear store, they'd know. At least with men's clothes, they wrote it off as me buying things for a man that never made an appearance. Or for my sons."
"That's fair. I'll borrow your clothes, if you don't mind. I'm rather Jason not try to disembowel me."
She hums. "As much as he postures, Jason would never. Tim is his favourite brother, and Tim loves you very much."
He flushes, because he knows Tim loves him, but it's different to hear it as a matter-of-fact statement by Batwoman of all people. There's always some lingering doubt cast by the shadow of his relationship with M'Gann whether Tim loves him as unconditionally as he loves Tim - some errant worry that one day, Tim will cross equally scared lines as the ones M'Gann had violated. But Bryce standing before him, open and honest in a way she generally wasn't, eradicated that haunting thought. Tim was perhaps the most like Bryce - elusive and secretive, hard and cold, gentle and understanding, deep and loving, vindictive and defensive - and the uncanny resemblance only cemented the true, unfettered depths of what Tim must really feel for him, feelings so certain and vibrant that Bryce - the most suspicious and cautious woman in the world - would state them unequivocally.
She reaches out and lays her hand on his shoulder. "Come on. Let's get cleaned up."
| | |
By the time they emerge from the showers, Dick, Tim and Jason have migrated down to the living room with Damian to have a battle of attrition over Tim's Mario Party victory.
"It's not Drake's fault you're an inferior strategist, Todd." Damian snarks, glaring down his older brother flatly.
"Hacks!" Jason declares, not for the first time if Alfred's weary puff of air is anything to go by.
"So, we're playing again?" Dick asks, a glass of something no doubt fruity and alcoholic hanging from between his fingers.
"Only if Jason wants to lose again." Tim remarks idly, but he knows it will make Jason bristle.
"Yes, again." Jason grits out.
Bryce and Kon are standing at the entrance to the kitchen, munching on the cracker plate Alfred had thoughtfully left out for them, each with a Gatorade in front of them. Bryce nudges him with an elbow, her wet hair still lingering with the warmth of their shower.
"Welcome to the family." She murmurs, low enough for his hearing to pick up but not to alert the boys to their presence.
"Pfft, thanks." He mutters back, unable to repress his smile.
She passes him a cracker with kolbassa and some frankly disgusting-smelling cheese on it. He takes a breath to resolve his courage, then takes it and eats it. She chuckles when his face lights up with the delightful taste of the cheese paired with the cracked pepper cracker.
"Stay over tonight." Bryce says, but it's not a command. "Tomorrow, you and I will start training. But be prepared, this is going to be unpleasant."
"I know. But I can't always just rely on my strength - there are things that can take that from me."
She nods. "A very astute and mature perspective to maintain. It's easy to imagine that what makes you special will always remain. Skills are the only things that can't be stolen from you."
He knows she speaks from experience - there are plenty of logs in the Watchtower that detail members being controlled, injured, depowered or overwhelmed. Bryce herself had been mind-controlled more than once and actually become less of a threat because of it. There was also the time in the alternate universe where she'd swapped powers with Clark and had been nearly unstoppable.
"Yeah, and I'm still fleshy under the Kryptonian stuff."
She offered him another cracker with another equally disgusting-smelling cheese. "Anything I can do for you, I will. All you have to do is ask."
He flushes again, ducking his head. He is surprised to feel her press against his side and rest her forehead against his temple. He breathes out shakily, pressing back.
"I always have room for one more." She says softly, an intimate and affectionate tone that Kon's never really gotten from anyone but Jonathan and Martha Kent once Clark finally admitted to them that he existed. "And I won't make you choose."
He almost wants to cry, and she can see the desperation behind the caution. He wants somewhere to be, somewhere he knows he can always come. The Kents are getting old and won't be around forever. Bryce herself isn't some green adolescent, but her family is large and enduring - they will remain, even when she's finally gone. And with her blessing, he can have them as his own too.
As for Bryce's own feelings own feelings on the matter, she's never turned away someone who wants to join her, or someone who needs her. She may not be the best at expressing herself or nurturing, but she tries to do right by her children, to give them everything she can. If Kon wants to be hers too, she thinks he's fit right in - black-haired, blue-eyed and alone - and his gentle demeanour would be a nice addition to the eclectic variety of personalities she's collected (and a good counterweight to Dick's airheaded charm and Jason's hair-trigger violence).
"I think I'd like that." He says bashfully, unable to meet her gaze.
She keeps herself pressed arm-to-arm, but pulls her head back. She passes him another cracker and continue observing as Tim once again trounced his brothers.
"I heard Kon's been in Gotham a lot lately."
Bryce sips her coffee idly, coolly gazing at him. Clark is a man who's maintained control of his body his whole life, but under her gaze, vacant and unreadable as it is, he fidgets and gets uncomfortable.
"He has." She replies at last.
"Did you allow him to or does he just come on his own?"
"He's dating Tim."
"I know that." He cuffs. "But he's there even more than usual now. Do I have to talk with him?"
"You should, but not about this." She sips her coffee again.
"What do you mean?"
She sets the cup down. "I told you, when we first found him, that he was your son and you have to take care of him."
Clark huff and rolls his eyes. "Bryce, we had this conversation-"
"And I've not bothered you about it since, have I?" She snipes in return. "In light of your refusal to let him into your family, I've let him into mine."
His mouth falls open. "You don't have to. He's fine at the Cave."
"By who's measure?" She raises an eyebrow and he shrinks back. "Not his own. He needs and wants a family, and when have you ever known me to turn down a stray?"
He sighs, this time in defeat. "Never."
"Kon's a good boy who will become a great man. It's a shame you can't see that."
"I do! I just-"
"I thought you didn't want to have this conversation again?" She tilts her head slightly, unimpressed. He backs down. "I've taken responsibility for him."
"How much responsibility?"
"I'm taking over his training and his financial requirements. He won't be staying at the Cave under Mount Justice much longer, if the rate of his growing comfort holds."
"You don't have to do this."
"I'm not doing it for your sake." How she manages to reprimand him without actually doing so is just another of one of her many talents he will never be able to master. "Your guilt for your mistreatment and disregard for him have nothing to do with my decision making. My concern is him, not you."
Clark barks out incredulous laughter. "How, of the two of us, are you better with kids?"
"I'm better at working through discomfort." She shrugs.
"I suppose so." He admitted.
"Should you and Lois ever marry and have children, you better include Kon." The look in Bryce's eyes was very clear - this was not a choice. The consequences would be dire for him if he ignored her this time, and he wasn't so sure he was ready to face whatever she had in mind.
"Okay." He managed.
She dropped a hundred dollar bill on the table. "Thanks for the coffee. Let's do it again sometime."