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Bruce, no matter what his children say, did in fact take feedback. All of his kids had sat him down and told him that they loved and cared for him, but that he needed to trust them to make their own decisions. When Bruce lovingly told them of a lot of their mess ups, he was told that they needed to make their own mistakes without him to grow as a person.
So, he would let his children grow, it did not hurt him (it hurt is fucking feelings a lot) but he would learn. He loved his kids and they were all so grown and if he kept thinking of this, he might start to cry.
Bruce did tell them that he was just trying to follow their earlier feedback that he should show more emotions. That started a conversation about the fact that the kids had no idea about how that previous conversation would be taken by him because he had been getting “worse” since then.
He was not hurt…. He was a bit hurt; he just did not know how the kids wanted him to show them that he cared. Bruce did everything for them; every day he always tried to do the best by them. He just did not know how to show it, was it his own childhood trauma that has stunted him he did not know but he would try his best for his kids.
So now here he was in a meeting with the justice league and something felt off. He could feel that something was going wrong in his home and that his kids did not at all have it under control. The feeling was getting worse and worse so he had stopped listening to Superman five minutes ago.
“Batman?” Superman sounded hesitant and Bruce looked up at him.
“Your heart rate is going up, something wrong?” Often Bruce would admonish him for listening in on his hearth but he was too worried to do that right now.
“Something is going on in my home… I can feel it.” He said and the rest of the team looked at him confused. “A flood, no not a flood… a fire yes something is burning.” Now everyone started to also look concerned.
“Should you not go and handle it?” Wonder Woman asked.
“No, I can trust my kids. My oldest is twenty-five. He can handle this. They are competent adults with this under control.” He said with as much confidence as he could. But the feeling got worse and worse and then.
“No, they do not have this under control at all, who am I kidding.” And he ran off to go home to save his kids and his mansion from a fire.
Superman had seen many things in this super hero business but he had no idea of what he just witnessed.
“Can humans just feel when something is going on?” He asked to be certain that he had not missed something.
“No… no we cannot.” Oliver said slowly. All of them were looking at the door Batman had rushed out of.
“I can’t believe that he has kids.” Barry said and that was when Clark’s mind picked up on that part of the conversation. Kids! The oldest twenty-five! How had he not known this before? He felt like he saw a whole new man as Batman now.
There was a beeping from the computer and Clark looked over at it. “Batman not available, expected to be back in six hours.” He blinked at the message; he had wondered about when Batman did this apparently this happened a lot at Gotham.
The next meeting everyone was so curious about Batman all of them were waiting for him to arrive. Superman had prepared a cup of coffee for the man hoping he would forgive him. Batman walked in and looked the same as always.
“How did it go with the fire?” Superman asked as he handed over the coffee. He saw the small quirk in Batman’s lips showing that he was pleased with the cup.
“There was indeed a fire and they did not at all have it under control.”
“Did it take six hours to take care of it?” Barry asked faster than Clark.
“No. I needed to make a power point.”
“What?” Hal asked, now so confused.
“They say that they are responsible adults. I disagree. They say I am dramatic, well I did a review on all of their performances of the fire and let me tell you it was not good. So therefore I am right, they are wrong.”
“Can we see that power point?” Barry asked with so much hope.
“It would help, we need to do the yearly fire handling soon so why don’t we get to see it, it can be a learning moment for us all.” Clark said, giving his Kansas look to him (aka looking extremely kind and hopeful). Batman looked at them all.
“Do you think this would help you?” All of them said yes and Batman sighed. Clark was so excited he would get to learn some new things about the man today!
They quickly went through the meeting and then Batman said he changed some stuff for civilian identity and then he put up the power point. It looked similar to what he prepared for them after a tough fight.
“Fire response” was the title and he even chose a red background. Then he kicked to the next slide. It looked like on one side there was almost a mugshot of the kid but it was blurred out and then the name on the title line also blurred out but the bullet points were still there.
“Okay, so my oldest, he did not start the fire so that was a bonus, but the biggest point for his low score at 2.5 out of ten is because he tried to throw water at a grease fire. He then after he was stopped tried to throw flour on the fire which also is extremely flammable. He also got a deduction for panicking.” Clark tried to see the man under the blurriness but what he knew was that he was twenty-five and he had black hair.
“Next one, my second oldest, now he was not there when the fire started but, he received a low score at 4 because when the panic was happening, he decided that the best decision was to start filming the fire instead of helping anyone. But as he did not make the situation worse, he did not get as low points as my oldest.” Barry raised his hand slowly and Batman slowly turned to look at him.
“What is it?”
“How old is he?” Barry asked carefully.
“Will it help you all if you know the ages?” Batman asked and all of them nodded quickly. They had never learned so much about the man before and they were not letting it stop now.
“He is twenty, then we will go on to the next one. This is my oldest girl. She is also twenty. Now she did not start the fire, and she did pull away my son who started the fire from burning himself. But the low score of 7 is because she stopped him by punching him so hard that he fell back.”
Clark felt his eyes widen, first how many kids did Batman have! Also, where are they all like this, so chaotic and violent? Because he was starting to get scared for everyone’s wellbeing. He looked over at everyone else and could see that he was not the only one who looked confused and scared.
“Now, this one is seventeen turning eighteen and he is the one that started the fire. He also panicked when the fire started and just stood there watching the fire. He receives a low score of 0, for all of his inaction.”
“The next one she is seventeen as well she saw that the fire started and her response was to start laughing so much that she almost peed herself and had to lay down on the floor. Thereby the low score of 4.” This girl was the first one that had a different hair colour than the rest. Everyone up to this point had only black hair but she was blond. Clark was seriously wondering when this was going to end.
“Now next up, he did try to pull apart my oldest and youngest as my youngest tried to stab him. So, he did stop a fight there for a score of 7. But he did not prioritise right, fire goes over fighting therefore he lost some points.” This boy had a different skin tone than all of the rest of the children so just from what was clear to them to see, skin tone and hair colour there were multiple mothers involved.
“My youngest, now he got a 5.5 because he did stop my oldest from throwing water on a grease fire and then he did stop him from throwing the flour. But he did this by grabbing a knife and trying to stab him. Therefore, he got points for acting yes, but lost some points of how he acted.” This one was also another skin colour; how many women were there that Batman had gotten pregnant.
“Now the overall review of my kids is low, and it is even lower because I have on the record a lot of times when they have taken care of a fire without any problem at all. It is just the second time all of them are together and when it is my place everything they know leaves their head and we get into these kinds of situations. Therefore I am right, they are wrong.” Clark just nodded, seven kids, seven!
“Oh, also an added bonus because they were there, here we have Roy.” Batman changed the slide and now they could see what looked like his own mugshot of Roy. Oliver sat up straighter and Clark was so confused as to why he was on the power point. “Now Roy was not there for the majority of the time. But when he came into the kitchen to see what was up he decided to go at my son who was filming. He told him that he needed the video and then they started to laugh. Therefore he gets a 4 for his inaction but he did not make the situation worse at least.”
Then Batman changed the slide and now Clark was so confused that it felt like his head would explode because why, why was Connor on the next slide. It was a photo that he had never seen and he had no idea why Connor would be at Batman’s house! He had only been allowed to be there twice!
“Now Connor, he started to fly when he saw the fire and he tried to push the people who were close to the fire backwards to create some distance. But he did this by picking people up and throwing them back. So, while he was productive, he should have prioritised differently by stopping the fire instead of trying to push everyone away from the fire. He gets a 7 for his efforts.” Now Batman changes the slide and it just says the end.
“Now did this help you all understand how you should act when there is a fire going?” Batman asked and all of them could just nod. Their heads were exploding and none of them were capable of making clear sentences right now.
“Good, glad it was some help, now if you excuse me, I have to make sure my kids are not killing each other.
Clark just watched Batman leave, his kids sounded like a scary experience. And apparently Connor was over at Batman’s place. He needed to have a conversation with his son? His clone? He still had no idea of what he should do with the boy. But at least Batman seemed to keep an eye out on him so that was good to know.
But in his mind, he was also realising that what they were calling debriefings after a bad fight really was just Batman using his parenting skills on them all. That was also a horrifying thought.