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“Bruce, I made a friend!”
“That's wonderful, buddy,” Bruce said, as he examined the documents he had on the kitchen counter.
The coffee was now cold in front of him, but sooner or later Bruce will drink it, if only as an involuntary gesture.
Even with only two hours of sleep, completely focused on his latest case, he had heard what Tim had said.
Bruce was capable of multitasking, especially for his children. And a part of him couldn't hide his relief at hearing the news.
Tim wasn't a sociable boy. Either for a protected education, or because he had spent a good part of his life in a boarding school, his social skills were equal to those of Bruce at his same age.
That is, they were very, very low.
Since he didn't want his children to grow up to be like him, Bruce understood that socialization was essential, and he tried to set a good example by showing up at all the events at Tim's school.
It had been humiliating, disastrous, and people did nothing but comment on how Tim had come into the family - a surprise to everyone, when the Drakes had been arrested for smuggling in a foreign country and a lawyer came to him the next day revealing that he was the child's new guardian, according to Janet Drake's wishes.
Why she chose him was a mystery.
Unfortunately, this had given rise to rumors that, no matter how hard he tried, continued to swirl.
Bruce had endured all of this for Tim, and the results had been no consolation. Tim remained a very lonely child, and he felt as if he should do more.
Jason told him he was an idiot, and to give Tim time to find someone he liked.
“It wasn't bad with me,” he said, but Bruce had reservations about his middle son's friendship choices. And Dick too, but his reasons were that most of Jason's friends had been friends with him before.
And there was the detail that they were all heroes.
Bruce would like to keep Tim out of family business as much as possible for another year, but knowing the kid, and after catching him trying to follow them at night for photos, he was losing hope that it would be possible.
“He's amazing,” Tim continued, excited.
“Mmhm…”
“He is very smart. “
“Mhmhm…”
“He doesn't think I'm weird. Well, maybe a little, but he likes that I'm different! Just like him!”
“Mhmhm…”
“And he's also a clone of Superman! But he's cooler! ”
“Wonderful…Wait, he is what?!”
Bruce finally put the documents aside, and narrowed his eyes.
Standing in the kitchen were two children, Tim and a slightly older boy, dressed in white and with the El symbol on his chest.
The clone had a guarded expression: it was clear that he didn't want to be there, and that he didn't trust him, but he held Tim's hand as if it were his lifeline.
“Tim…how did you meet a clone of Superman?” Bruce asked, hoping the answer wasn't that the boy had taken the expression to make a friend literally. Clark would blame him, as if Bruce could hope to have any control over his kids.
The clone grimaced, and Tim retorted, "His name is Kon!"
“Yeah…how did you meet Kon?”
“He was hiding in my old house,” Tim explained. “Today, before going to school, I noticed something strange, like lights on where they shouldn't be, and I told Alfred that I would have gone to school with Jason. While Alfred was distracted, I slipped away, and went to see what was going on.”
Bruce groaned inwardly. Obviously Tim had gone snooping, he was like a cat.
(No darling, he's a detective, he imagined Selina's voice telling him.)
The boy continued, “Once there, I found Kon in the kitchen, and first he threw things at me, then he realized that I wasn't a threat and we became friends!”
“Wait a minute…did he throw things at you?” Bruce asked, his eyes searching for signs of injury or anything broken on the child. Tim was fine though, the one who seemed to have had a bad week was the clone...Kon, he corrected himself.
“Mostly cushions and also the sofa, but he stopped with the sofa because he got hungry, so I ordered some pizzas for us, and we spent the morning eating pizza and destroying my parents' things. Then, I asked him where he came from and he told me that some bad guys wanted a clone of Superman and that he was just another experiment but the only one he was got away, and he doesn't know how he ended up in Gotham, he knows he wanted very far. So I told him that I lived with Batman and that you would surely protect him, and here we are!"
There was so much to deal with.
Kon wasn't the only clone in existence. There may be others who will soon come looking for him, and Gotham will find itself overrun by evil clones of a semi-divine alien. He will have to prepare himself, and keep Kon where he can't cause trouble until the crisis is over. God, he's going to have to warn Clark, isn't he?
He then made an instinctive movement to approach Tim. Too fast, and Kon immediately stepped between him and the child, his face determined, his brow furrowed.
Bruce froze. He recognized that reaction. It was what abused children had when faced with unknown adults.
Kon had believed…Bruce shuddered at the thought.
At the same time, he was struck by how protective the boy was of Tim, and how he didn't exist in the face of threats to Tim, real or imagined.
Bruce appreciated loyalty, and although he had doubts about everything, he thought that at least Kon deserved the benefit of the doubt.
“I'm not mad at Tim,” Bruce told him, reassuringly. “You're both safe here.”
“Those scientists said so too,” Kon finally spoke, spitting the words out like an insult.
“I'm not going back to them, you can forget it.“
“I would never let you go back there,” he vowed. “Tim was right to bring you here, Kon. You couldn't keep using a random house to hide..."
The phone rang at that moment, and Bruce answered.
On the other side, it was Alfred, “Sir, young master Timothy didn't come to school today, master Jason is with me and hasn't seen his brother since…”
“Alfred, Tim's at home,” he interrupted, wanting to immediately clear up the misunderstanding. "He is fine. It's a long story but…he has a friend now.”
"A friend? How?”
“It's a long story,” he sighed. “Do you remember how Dick first met his best friends?”
“Oh…I guess that's to be expected. Younger siblings tend to imitate their siblings. “
"Unfortunately. I hope he won't try to imitate them in anything else."
Like steal a mantle and become a vigilante.
“Honestly, I doubt it, sir.”
Yes, that's what he feared too.