Chapter Text
Clark hates that he doesn't even know when it happens. They're fighting a battle, sure, but surely he should be able to give the relative time Batman dropped off comms, right? But he can't. No one can. And Clark- Clark considers Bruce his friend so if anyone should know and keep track of him it's Clark, he should be tracking but he hadn't. Clark literally has super hearing, super smell, super tracking galore. And he dropped right out from under him, from under all of them.
He feels that rolling guilt in his gut but there's not much to do but search and figure it out now, so that's what he does. First, he scans for Bruce with his x-ray vision, dipping across the carnage they've left and looking for a silhouette he recognizes as his. He listens at the same time, for any sign of noise that Bruce might make. Both come up empty.
He’d be talking if he was alright, trying to get back into communication with them. Why isn’t he talking? Why can’t Clark hear him?
“It's Bats,” Hal says next to him, “he's fine. Right?”
“Let's track his comm,” Diana decides, level headed when the rest of them can't seem to solve the issue. It's something Bruce would have suggested immediately if he were here. They think of it much too late. If he’s bleeding out they’ll be too late to find him.
They track his comm, finding it easily and following their path to it, searching through rumble and keeping out eyes for familiar signs of a dark cape. It's Barry who spots the yellow brown of the utility belt and Clark who moves some piles and wreckage to fully see him. His heart clutches, worried about injuries, but as he quickly X-rays him, he finds nothing severe.
But that's not Batman.
“They appear relatively unharmed,” Clark agrees, and looks at them fully, sees how the costume fits illy, “but- is that Batman?”
It’s a child, is the thing. A young teenager more accurately, poorly fit in the Batman costume.
“Teleportation?” Barry offers, “time magic? Maybe, maybe not.”
“He's unconscious,” Diana confirms. “If he's unharmed, that means we can move him. We should bring him back to the watchtower. He surely wouldn't want to be left exposed like this.”
“And if he is some random civilian?” Hal snorts.
“Then that sounds like a problem Batman would have, and he isn't here right now,” Clark decides, “let's bring him back.”
The group nods swiftly, and Diana lifts him. Clark goes ahead and makes the call for everyone else that Batman is believed to have been located and is safe and to carry out various after event steps. It's usually something Batman does, not Clark, and he's not quite sure how to run it, really just following what he sees Batman usually do.
Cyborg helps him, jumping in to assign teams for clean up and press and that allows Clark to focus on getting back to the watchtower and figuring out this whole thing with Bruce.
Cyborg meets them in the medbay as Diana sets potential child Bruce down and draws up some blood. Bruce stirs at the action, but doesn't wake.
“We’ll start by just testing with his blood on file to confirm it's a match,” Cyborg explains, “I'm sure he wouldn't want us a prying and well, even a child him sounds terrifying if that is him so we’ll run that and wait for him to wake to do anything else.”
It sounds simple enough, and fair, so Clark nods as Cyborg steps out with the collected blood.
Clark stays in watch, looks at the loose fitting clothes and wishes they could get him in something better, but also isn't willing to risk crossing any of Bruce's boundaries. It isn't urgent enough that it can't wait until he wakes.
Barry enters the room a minute later, stands near the bed and taps his foot at superspeed, the hum of it filling the room. He looks at his phone and then looks down at Bruce.
“I think it's him,” he declares, “or, pretty sure at least.”
“You think?” Clark asks.
“Yeah,” Barry confirmed, “look.”
He flips his phone around, showing the image search result for ‘Bruce Wayne teenage’ and Clark is startled at the similarity. The face from where the cowl has come off is an exact match and he's sure if they could see more of the boy's body it would be even more striking. The only thing that is incongruent is that most of the photos have him looking sharp and focused whereas him asleep has him look much more relaxed than anything in the pictures.
“You looked him up?”
“I mean yeah?” Barry says, “we know who he is now, we've known for a while and he's like famous, and it's faster than the blood test. It's a good thing to go off until we get it back.”
Clark supposed that's true, but it feels invasive and creepy in a way he can't quite pin down so he keeps quiet. Barry shrugs, swipes in his phone again for another minute and then leaves the room.
Clark stays with what is seeming to genuinely be Bruce. Bruce but younger, maybe fourteen or fifteen years of age. He tries to picture himself at that age, back in Smallville in high school and half shudders, half smiles. There's bittersweet memories there. The joy of living at home and in a tight knit community combined with a growing alien body and struggling to fit in. He wonders about Bruce and his own teenage years. What was Bruce doing then?
The boy in front of him shifts, and Clark's attention is drawn to him once more. He tracks his breathing and his heart rate with his own hearing alongside the monitor and all appears normal, so he sighs, stands himself, and goes to check in on how things are dialing down.
Clean up is being manned by Cyborg and Martian Manhunter, Barry taking over lead on watching out for Bruce's blood test back. Clark watches it all from the background. He’s used to being on the ground in these situations, helping out first hand, but with Bruce he had returned almost immediately. It’s interesting to watch from afar as the league moves from the watchtower, speaks to representatives and runs clean up.
There’s not much to do, really, even though Clark has the itching need to do something, so he looks over reports of how the attack started and hopes to begin to make some form of connections. He’s entrenched in that twenty minutes later when the next round of leaguers return.
“How’s Batman?” Arthur asks, as the group steps forward and Clark gives him a nod of acknowledgement.
“We’re pretty sure it is him,” Barry takes over, “Blood test is running now.”
“Clean up?” Clark asks.
“Relatively done,” Arthur says, “We’ll have some people stay for a few days to help out, but the worst of the search and rescue has been completed. Evacuation had gone well before the main attack- thanks Flash.”
Flash gives a little mock salute and nods.
“Course,” he agrees.
“Hey isn't there a protocol on what to do in this situation,” Oliver points out.
“Cyborg and Martian Manhunter are running those protocols for clean up,” Clark answers. “Just because Batman is indisposed doesn't mean we’re not running those commands.”
“No, I mean for Batman. If he has been- what, turned younger? Isn’t their protocol for that? Have we looked at that?”
The four of them share looks.
“Uh…” Clark offers.
Barry speeds away.
He rejoins with a tablet.
“So apparently he wants to be sedated,” Barry notes, tapping at it repeatedly.
“Sedated?” Clark asks- “Why would he want-”
“I don’t know,” Barry says, “But it’s written here that under no circumstances should he wake up under Justice League care and that we should sedate him and contact his emergency contact and that they’ll go from there.”
Great. This is turning into an even bigger nightmare. At least they caught it now, and now when he had already woken up. Clark sighs, and rubs at his head.
“Is that still Nightwing?” Clark asks.
“Yes.”
“Contact Nightwing,” Clark answers, “I guess I’ll go speak to Cyborg about sedating him?”
“No need,” Oliver calls.
Clark turns to him, and Oliver gestures towards the wing that holds the medbay.
“He’s gone.”
Great. Clark really wants to swear right now.
“So you don't know where he is?” Nightwing asks, right after he registers through the zeta tube and comes striding through.
“Well technically no,” Cyborg agrees, “But we just run the watchtower censors and we find him. Unless he was doing his Batman thing at this age too.”
They all turn to Nightwing, looking for a response. They know Bruce’s general schtick and when he became active was one of those things, but who knew how much training he had before then, and for how long.
“Uh, no,” he agrees, “Let’s- run the scan and let's go from there.”
Victor nods, and he taps things on computer screens that Clark doesn’t really understand about watchtower protocols and wiring and then a blueprint pulls up with various dots bouncing around all in it.
“We just need to find which is his,” he explains, and they get to eliminate the possibilities.
They identify him in a storage closet off the wing of the medbay, not moving.
“I’ll take point, Supes, GA, hang back in case he makes a run for it?” Nightwing asks, and they nod in agreement.
They head in the direction of the closet, and Nightwing has them hang back in the hall while he moves forward.
“Bruce?” he calls as he approaches, “Hi, my name’s Dick Grayson. I’m a friend. I know Alfred and I’m here to help take you home.”
The door doesn’t budge. Clark can hear shifting around and as he looks into the closet he sees Bruce move away from the door, clattering against a shelf.
“I need you to come out, okay,” Dick continues, “Or at least give me some sign of life. Can you do that?”
Clark watches as Bruce heaves in breaths, covering his mouth with one hand as he realizes how loudly he’s breathing. Dick gives him a few moments but Bruce doesn’t speak up, and he doesn’t stop heaving, still covering his mouth as he forces himself to breathe through his noise and take up as little space as possible. He seems so scared that Clark’s heart aches for him, and he’s wishing they followed that contingency plan early even if he doesn’t like the sound of sedating a child.
But it’s too late for that now.
“Okay Bruce, I’m going to open the door,” Dick says. He counts down from five, and Clark watches as Bruce stiffens. Clark watches as something changes in his eyes and his fear fades immediately. Something else brightens. Dick gets to zero and twists it open and Clark doesn’t have time to warn him before Bruce is springing and darting out.
He slashes at Dick with something in his hand.
“Woah!” Dick says, caught by surprise as he dodges last minute. Bruce leaps past him and makes a run for the hall. But Clark has one end of the hall and Oliver has the other. Eyes narrowed, Bruce goes to the only option- the original medbay.
Dick follows with slow steps, chattering as he does.
“Okay Bruce, I’m coming in,” he says as he pushes the door aside.
“Go away,” Bruce yells.
“We are sure this is Bruce, right?” Oliver asks.
“Didn’t you know him at this age?” Clark asks.
“Oh yeah, spitting image,” OIiver agrees, “Just that, well we’d be extraordinarily fucking this up if we weren’t sure.”
Clarak clicks his communicator.
“Flash do we have that blood test back yet?”
“...Just finishing up,” he confirms, “Give it one minute… and… match. We have a baby Bruce alright.”
Oliver and Clark share a look.
“Bruce,” Nightwing is saying, “I have Alfred on the phone, you can talk to him.”
“Don’t come any closer,” he threatens.
“Where did- Did you give him a knife?!” Nightwing exclaims, and they both race into the room, only to find a teenage Bruce in a corner, wielding a knife at Nightwing who stands off to the side, giving him plenty of space.
“No,” Oliver protests immediately, “We didn’t give him a knife!”
“He must of found it,” Clark agrees, though how he isn’t sure. Bruce isn’t supposed to have Batman level skills yet, but he’s already picked up the habit of pocketing knives in strange, unfamiliar places. Great.
“Okay, Bruce, I’ll give you space,” Dick agrees, “But we need to go home eventually. Do you want to talk to Alfred?”
“Why doesn’t my phone work?” he demands.
“Alfred can explain,” Dick soothes, but that doesn’t seem to be getting them anywhere.
“I’ll stab you if you don’t tell me why my phone works,” Bruce threatens, “I’m not afraid to use the knife.”
Clark thought child him was supposed to be less scary, but seeing a tiny Bruce like this with a knife is genuinely terrifying.
“Ugh,” Oliver groans, “Okay look kid you're in the future, that’s why your phone doesn’t work and why you're in space, okay.”
“Don’t tell him he’s in space-” Clark hisses, “That’s just going to freak him out.”
“You’re not very good kidnappers,” Bruce says, “That’s a terrible lie.”
“Oh my god, B we’re not kidnappers,” Dick groans, “Just, okay. What would prove to you we’re not kidnappers.”
The teenage Bruce in front of them considers. Clark relaxes. Good, Bruce will come up with an answer and they can follow through and prove they aren’t kidnapping him and everyone can relax.
“Let me go,” he decides.
Maybe not.
“Yeah, can’t do that,” Dick sighs.
“You’re totally kidnappers,” teenage Bruce decides.
“This really isn’t looking good for us, huh?” Dick tries.
Bruce stares.
“Okay, well what if we took you home?” Dick offers, “Even if we were kidnappers, that’s like- better than here, right?”
“You want to take me to a second location?” Bruce asks suspiciously, “That’s rule number one of not getting kidnapped.”
He doesn’t lower his knife.
“Okay but you're already at a second location,” Oliver points out, “So it would be a third.”
“So you are kidnappers.”
“We aren’t kidnappers!” Dick insists. He turns to Oliver, “Shut up, man.”
“Don’t you have protocols to get him to believe you?” Clark asks.
“Yes,” Dick agrees, “but the idea was to figure that out once we got him home, not in the watchtower. You were supposed to be following the first phase of the plan.”
Dick doesn’t outright say ‘he should be sedated’ which is probably a good thing, but Bruce still seems displeased by the idea of there being any plan surrounding him if his frown is anything to go by, or the way he grips the knife tighter.
Dick sighs.
“Bruce,” he tries, “At this point, you’ve thought about Batman.”
And Bruce- this teenage Bruce in front of them stills.
“I want to talk to Alfred,” he demands, something hard in his voice, something that sounds almost like the Batman that Clark knows now. It makes the hairs on his neck rise and something sink within him.
Dick softens immediately, tension Clark hadn’t even noticed building in his shoulders loosening immediately.
“Yeah bud,” he agrees easily, “We can make that happen.”
“I’m not your bud,” he argues briskly. Dick nods in understanding.
He pulls out his phones and types something in, before offering it out to Bruce. Bruce glances towards the abandoned bed and Dick steps forward before setting it down and backing up. Bruce steps forward in his own time and gathers it up and puts it to his ear before racing back to the corner. He holds the knife out with his spare hand.
“Alfred?” Bruce says.
“Master Bruce,” the butler’s familiar voice greets.
Clark is surprised to hear the reply in his comm. He looks at Nightwing, but Dick doesn’t look back, instead staring steadily ahead at Bruce. Clark tries to school his expression.
“Alfred. I’ve been kidnapped.”
“No Master Bruce, you have not. In fact, magical forces are at play and you have been returned to the age of your teens.”
“Bullshit.”
“If you allow Dick Grayson to take you home, he’ll do so in these exact steps. He’ll take you down the hall to a main room with a tube that will allow you to teleport to the cave below the manor. I will meet you there, and from then we can prove beyond any assurance that you have not been kidnapped.”
“How do you know about Batman?” Bruce asks.
“Because Master Bruce, you become him. You make it happen.”
“Those were the clothes I woke in.” He was in just the interior suit now, thing and light and baggy on his form.
“I presume so.”
“Hnn.”
“Master Bruce, please let Mr. Grayson bring you home.”
Bruce turns to Dick, who gives a pleasant smile. Bruce frowns in return and turns back to the phone.
“Alright Alfred,” he confirms, “I’m on my way.”
He hands the phone back to Dick, putting it on the bed once more, and removes himself from the corner.
“I want to go home,” he insists. He keeps the knife.
Dick nods.
“Let’s do that then,” he agrees, and gestures towards the door. Bruce frowns deeply, but takes the first steps forward.
Clark leads them out of the room, towards the zeta tube they will take home. He stands off to the side as Dick gives a brief explanation of the technology and then stands in the tube. Bruce looks more wary, but follows Dick’s instructions under Alfred’s previous permission, and they warp away. Clark waits as they disappear, and stares at where they were when they're gone.
“We’re being called to debrief,” Barry says eventually, swinging by his side.
Clark nods, and moves toward the meeting room. It’s time to discuss the events that have occurred.