Chapter Text
A Creature of Pure Shadow and Vengeance (Is Having a Panic Attack)
The Justice League had a lot of questions about Batman, but the reigning mystery of the month was: What is his deal with food?
The man was supposed to be a creature of pure shadow and vengeance, but he had recently turned the Watchtower cafeteria into a high-end, hyper-specific snack oasis. The Flash had a pantry overflowing with 10,000-calorie protein bars. Wonder Woman had her soft-serve machine. Green Arrow had found a stash of rare, top-shelf bourbon hidden in his locker.
"I'm telling you, it's a psychological play," Green Arrow whispered, leaning over the briefing table. "He’s analyzing our vices. He’s mapping our dopamine responses to exploit us later."
"Or he is simply a courteous companion," Wonder Woman countered, happily enjoying a swirl of vanilla-chocolate twist.
Before Green Arrow could argue, the teleporter doors hissed open. Batman strode into the room.
As usual, he was a terrifying silhouette, all sharp Kevlar angles, heavy combat boots, and a sweeping, scalloped cape that seemed to swallow the light. He didn't greet anyone. He just glided over to his chair, sat down with rigid, military posture, and stared straight ahead.
Superman gave a warm, welcoming nod. "Good morning, Batman. We were just reviewing the star charts for Sector 4."
Batman didn't move. He didn't blink. He sat so perfectly still that Green Lantern privately wondered if the man even needed to breathe. The tension in the room skyrocketed. Was he angry? Was he tracking a global threat in his mind? Was he judging them for eating ice cream before a briefing?
"Batman?" Superman prompted gently.
Slowly, deliberately, Batman reached into his utility belt. The League tensed, half-expecting him to pull out a smoke bomb or a high-tech flashbang.
Instead, he pulled out a small, metallic object, set it on the table, and pushed it exactly two inches forward.
It was a sleek, black fidget spinner with custom ceramic bearings.
"For the speedster," Batman rasped, his voice a deep, terrifying, gravelly growl that sent shivers down Green Arrow's spine. "To regulate... excess kinetic energy. During briefings."
Flash blinked, looking at the tiny toy, then up at the terrifying, demon-eared vigilante. "Uh. Thanks, man."
Batman gave a single, stiff, ominous nod. Then, he went entirely rigid again, resuming his silent, unblinking stare at the viewscreen.
"Right," Green Lantern muttered, thoroughly unnerved. "Moving on to the star charts..."
Throughout the entire hour-long meeting, Batman did not say another word. He sat like a stone statue, radiating a cold, calculated aura of absolute danger. When the meeting finally adjourned, he rose, swept his cape over his shoulder in a blur of darkness, and vanished down the corridor before anyone could even say goodbye.
"See?" Green Arrow hissed the moment the doors closed. "Terrifying. A man of zero emotion."
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Bruce was having a catastrophic morning, and he was ninety percent sure his heart was going to burst out of his ribs.
I shouldn't have had that second energy drink, Bruce thought frantically, his hands gripping the arms of his chair so hard his gloves were sticking to the leather. My heart is beating at three hundred beats per minute. If Superman uses his super-hearing right now, he's going to think I'm having a medical emergency.
He had spent the last three days trying to figure out how to give The Flash the fidget toy he’d built. Alfred had told him that just handing it to the man like a normal person would be fine, but Alfred didn't understand the sheer, paralyzing terror of peer-to-peer communication.
Green Arrow was staring at him. Why is he staring at me? Is my cowl crooked? Did Dick put a cartoon sticker on my cape again? Oh god, Green Arrow looks like he wants to fight me.
"Batman?" Superman asked.
Oh no, they want me to speak.
Bruce’s throat felt like sandpaper. He knew if he used his normal twenty-two-year-old voice, it was going to crack, and then he would have to fake his own death and move to a different planet. He forced his vocal cords down into the deep, gravelly scratch he’d practiced in the mirror.
He pulled the toy out, his fingers trembling slightly inside his heavy gauntlets, and slid it onto the table. "For the speedster. To regulate... excess kinetic energy. During briefings."
Nailed it, Bruce thought, a wave of profound relief washing over him. That sounded incredibly professional and team-oriented. Alfred will be so proud of me. I am getting an A-plus in being a teammate.
The Flash thanked him, and Bruce gave a stiff nod, immediately locking his muscles back into place. Okay, don't move. If you don't move, they won't ask you any more questions.
For the next fifty minutes, Bruce sat in a state of pure, unadulterated sensory overload. The lights were too bright. Wonder Woman’s ice cream smelled incredibly good and he hadn't eaten a real meal in twenty-four hours. His left leg really wanted to bounce, but he knew if he bounced his leg, the armor would clank and he would look weak.
So, he just stared at the viewscreen, projecting what he hoped was "competent, reliable adult co-worker" and not "college-aged orphan who is currently disassociating."
The second Superman said the words, "Meeting adjourned," Bruce practically vaulted out of his chair.
He threw his cape over his shoulder to cover the fact that he was accidentally tripping over his own heavy boots, walked briskly out of the room, and did a dead sprint down the hallway toward the teleporter.
He materialized back in the Batcave, immediately ripping the cowl off his head. His messy, sweat-matted hair fell into his eyes as he collapsed onto the cold stone floor, letting out a long, pathetic groan.
"I take it the team-building exercise was a roaring success, Master Bruce?" Alfred asked dryly, walking over with a tray containing a grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of chocolate milk.
Bruce rolled onto his back, staring up at the cave ceiling, his face still burning red from the stress. "I gave him the spinner, Alfred. I think they think I'm cool."
From the top of the stairs, nine-year-old Dick Grayson yelled down, "Did you use the scary voice, B?!"
"It's a tactical voice, Dick!" Bruce yelled back defensively, before wrapping himself in his cape on the floor and reaching for his grilled cheese. "And yes. It was very imposing."
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The Justice League knew that Batman was efficient. They knew he was a tactical genius, a ghost in the shadows, and a man who seemingly lacked the capacity for basic human warmth.
But watching him handle the aftermath of the Metropolis invasion was a whole new level of unsettling.
The alien vanguard had been thoroughly dismantled, leaving the downtown plaza a smoking ruin of purple crystalline debris and shattered concrete. The League was currently doing crowd control, but they had run into a massive, insurmountable roadblock: a four-year-old boy in a muddy dinosaur t-shirt, trapped beneath a collapsed awning.
Superman had lifted the debris with a gentle smile, but the moment the boy saw the towering alien god in primary colors, he had shrieked in absolute terror and scrambled backward into a tight, unreachable concrete crevice.
"Hey, it's okay, little guy," Flash tried, vibrating his face to look friendly, which only made the kid scream louder.
Green Lantern stepped up, generating a bright green teddy bear construct. "Look! A bear! Friendly bear!"
The kid threw a piece of rubble at the construct, sobbing hysterically, his face red and tear-streaked. "W-Want my mommy! Go away, space monsters!"
"We are not space monsters, young warrior," Wonder Woman said, her booming, Amazonian voice echoing off the ruins. She knelt, trying to look comforting, but her massive silver bracelets and golden lasso only made her look like an apex predator closing in on prey. The boy curled into a tight ball, hyperventilating.
"Great. We can stop an intergalactic warlord, but we're getting defeated by a toddler," Green Arrow muttered, rubbing his temples. "Superman, try the puppy dog eyes or something."
"I'm trying!" Superman whispered back, looking genuinely distressed. "My super-hearing is picking up his heart rate. He's panicking too hard, I don't want to scare him into shock."
A long, heavy shadow fell over the group.
The League collectively tensed as Batman glided into the clearing. His scalloped cape dragged over the rubble like the wings of a giant, predatory bat. The white lenses of his cowl glowed faintly in the dust.
"Oh, great," Green Arrow whispered. "Let's bring in the creature of the night. That'll definitely calm down a traumatized toddler."
Batman didn't say a word. He marched right past Superman, his heavy combat boots crunching ominously on the glass. He stopped right in front of the crevice. To the League's horror, Batman dropped heavily to one knee, the armor plates in his legs grinding together with a sharp, metallic clank.
He leaned his massive, terrifying frame directly into the dark crevice.
"He's going to interrogate a four-year-old," Green Lantern whispered in disbelief.
Then, Batman reached into his utility belt. The League held their breath, wondering if he was pulling out a tracking device or a tranquilizer.
Instead, Batman pulled out a tiny, crinkly, bright blue plastic pouch. He tore it open with his teeth. A sweet, artificial strawberry scent drifted into the smoky air.
"Fruit snacks," Batman rasped. His voice was still that deep, terrifying, demonic growl, but it was incredibly quiet, vibrating low in his chest. "They are... dinosaur-shaped. You can have them."
The kid's sobbing hitched. He peeked through his sticky fingers. "D-Dino?"
"Yes," Batman rumbled, his terrifying cowl tilting slightly. He reached into the pouch with two massive, armored fingers and pulled out a squishy, red gelatinous T-Rex. "This is a Tyrannosaurus. It is the red flavor. It is the best one."
The Flash gasped audibly behind him. Superman’s jaw dropped.
"My... my kid," Batman continued, his voice dropping into a raspy, secretive whisper as he leaned closer, "he eats all the red ones. I have to smuggle them out of the house in my armor. Otherwise, he steals them. He is very sneaky."
The toddler sniffled, looking from the red gummy to the giant, terrifying bat-man. Slowly, the kid crawled forward on his hands and knees, completely ignoring the rest of the Justice League, and reached out. Batman carefully dropped the gummy into the child's small, dirty palm.
"I also have... the juice of the apple," Batman added, reaching into a hidden compartment in his cape. He produced a tiny, green cardboard juice box. With terrifying precision, his heavy, Kevlar-gloved fingers stabbed the tiny plastic straw directly into the foil hole. He extended it forward. "It has a straw. Drink."
The kid grabbed the juice box, took a massive gulp, and then, without warning, launched himself out of the crevice and wrapped his arms entirely around Batman’s neck, burying his face into the heavy, black bat-insignia on his chest.
Batman went entirely rigid. He looked like a statue that had just been struck by lightning. For three agonizing seconds, he didn't move a muscle, staring blankly at the concrete wall. Then, very slowly, and with a staggering amount of awkwardness, he patted the kid's back with one massive hand, his fingers splayed wide as if he wasn't entirely sure what human anatomy was.
He stood up, effortlessly lifting the toddler with one arm, the kid still happily sucking on the juice box and clinging to his cape like a koala.
Batman turned around to face the League. His white lenses stared at them, completely unreadable, radiating his usual aura of cold, unapproachable danger.
"The perimeter is secure," Batman growled at Superman. "I am returning the civilian to the medical tent."
Without waiting for a response, he turned and strode away, his cape swishing around the toddler's dangling sneakers.
"Did..." Green Arrow stared, his mouth hanging wide open. "Did the demon just bribe a child with contraband fruit snacks?"
"He has a kid?" Flash squeaked, his brain short-circuiting. "Batman has a child? Who let Batman have a child?!"
"It was a masterclass in psychological de-escalation," Wonder Woman murmured, thoroughly impressed. "He lowered the target's defenses by establishing a common vulnerability—the theft of the red flavor. Brilliant."
Superman just stared after the retreating dark silhouette, feeling a strange, profound sense of whiplash. "He's... a lot more complicated than we thought."
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Bruce was having a full-blown panic attack, and he was completely certain he was going to drop the baby.
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, Bruce's mind screamed as he walked toward the triage tents, his muscles locked in a state of absolute terror. There is a child on me. Why did I do that? Alfred told me to be more approachable, but I don't think this is what he meant.
His heart was pounding so hard against his chest plate he was worried the kid would feel the vibrations and realize Batman was actually a fraud.
When he had seen the kid crying, Bruce’s brain had temporarily short-circuited. He had just seen Dick’s face. Dick had cried just like that a month ago when he scraped his knee on the Batmobile's bumper. Bruce remembered that the only thing that had stopped the tears was the stash of fruit snacks Alfred kept in the glove box.
I shouldn't have said the thing about smuggling them, Bruce thought frantically, sweat dripping down his neck beneath the heavy rubber cowl. Why did I say that? Now the Justice League thinks I'm a smuggler. They're going to think I'm running an illegal grocery operation in Gotham. Superman looked at me so weirdly. I bet he's going to look up my dental records.
The toddler let out a wet, happy burp against Bruce’s shoulder, sticking a purple-gummy-covered hand directly onto the pristine matte-black finish of Bruce's cowl.
Great. There is fruit snack residue on the tactical gear. Alfred is going to kill me. That resin takes hours to polish out.
Bruce finally reached the medical tent, where a very relieved-looking mother sobbed and ran forward to take the boy. The kid let go of the cape with a little whine, and Bruce immediately stepped back, terrified that if he stayed a second longer, the mother would try to hug him too. Peer-to-peer contact with adults was a boundary he was absolutely not prepared to cross today.
"Thank you, Batman! Thank you so much!" the mother cried.
Bruce forced his throat to constrict, lowering his voice into the deepest, most gravelly, soul-crushing whisper he could manage. "He requires... a nap. And a balanced meal. The sugar intake was... an emergency protocol."
Before she could ask any questions, Bruce spun on his heel, his cape whipping dramatically through the air, and marched at a brisk, militaristic pace around the corner of the tent. The moment he was out of sight, he ducked into an alley, hit his wrist communicator, and practically begged for a bridge.
"Alfred, patch me through to the Batcave teleporter right now," he hissed into the comms, his voice cracking slightly in his panic.
"Initiating now, Master Bruce. I assume the mission was successful?"
The blue light of the teleporter engulfed him, and a second later, Bruce tumbled out onto the cold, damp stone of the Batcave floor. He ripped his cowl off immediately, gasping for air, his face flushed bright red.
Dick was sitting on the edge of the supercomputer desk, swinging his legs and eating a bowl of cereal. He looked up, his eyes widening. "B! You look like you're gonna barf! Did a giant alien hit you in the stomach?"
"No," Bruce groaned, burying his face in his hands as he sat cross-legged on the floor in his multi-million-dollar armor. "A toddler touched my face, Dick. He had sticky hands. I had to use the fruit snacks I stole from your lunchbox."
Dick immediately dropped his spoon, looking outraged. "You stole my dino-snacks?! B, those are mine! Alfred bought those for me!"
"It was a tactical sacrifice!" Bruce yelled back defensively, running a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. "The League was watching me! I had to look like I knew what I was doing! I told them you steal the red ones!"
"I do steal the red ones, they're the best!" Dick shouted, jumping down from the desk. "But you're supposed to be Batman! You're supposed to throw a smoke bomb and disappear, not give away my juice boxes!"
Alfred walked down the metal stairs, carrying a fresh towel and a bottle of disinfectant spray. He looked at Bruce’s sticky cowl, then at Bruce’s completely traumatized, twenty-two-year-old face.
"Well," Alfred said dryly, setting the spray down. "It seems your reputation as an unfeeling creature of the night remains entirely intact, Master Bruce. Though I believe we will need to restock the utility belt with more... diplomatic provisions before your next patrol."
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The Justice League was starting to suspect that Batman didn’t actually sleep. Or eat. Or exist in a linear sequence of time like a normal human being.
They had begun testing the distress beacons. Not intentionally, at first, but after the Metropolis incident, a pattern had emerged. Batman wasn’t just a tactical asset; he was an omnipresent, terrifying force of nature that materialized the exact millisecond a button was pressed.
"I’m telling you, it’s a global surveillance grid," Green Arrow muttered, pacing around the Watchtower monitor womb. It was three in the morning. "He’s tapped into our biometrics. He knows when our heart rates spike."
"He helped me re-contain a rogue tectonic drill in the Gobi Desert at four in the morning yesterday," Green Lantern said, looking exhausted just thinking about it. "I accidentally hit the emergency ping on my ring. He didn't even use a teleporter. He just... climbed out of a ravine. In full armor. In the desert."
"He assisted me with a localized tidal anomaly off the coast of Greece last Tuesday," Wonder Woman added, looking up from her tablet. "It was a minor structural collapse in an underwater trench. I pressed the alert to notify the team of a potential delay. He appeared in a tactical submersible within four minutes."
"Did he say anything?" Flash asked, hovering over a bowl of cereal.
"He cleared the rubble, secured the foundation, gave me a rigid, intimidating nod, and submerged back into the trench," Wonder Woman said. "He was entirely silent. The efficiency was breathtaking."
The main console suddenly chimed. A minor proximity alarm flared on the monitor, a malfunctioning satellite piece was tumbling toward the upper atmosphere, threatening a communication blackout for Western Europe. It wasn't an apocalypse, just a tedious, multi-hour orbital cleanup job.
Superman reached out to log it. Before his finger could even brush the touchscreen, the Watchtower teleporter hissed.
The League collectively jumped.
Batman strode into the monitor womb. The overhead fluorescent lights gleamed off his matte-black armor, which looked entirely pristine despite the fact that it was 4:00 AM. His heavy cape billowed behind him, casting a long, ominous shadow across the floor. He didn't look at anyone. He didn't say good morning. He just marched directly to the primary console, shoved Superman’s hand aside with a brutal, efficient sweep of his armored forearm, and began typing at a speed that shouldn't have been humanly possible.
"Batman," Superman said, blinking in surprise. "We... we hadn't even sent the alert out yet."
Batman paused. His gloved fingers hovered over the keyboard. Slowly, deliberately, his terrifying, demon-eared cowl turned toward Superman. The white lenses glowed with a cold, unblinking intensity.
"I monitor the orbital trajectories," Batman rasped. His voice was a horrific, gravelly scrape that sounded like a coffin dragging across concrete. "You are slow. The debris would have breached the thermosphere in eighty-four seconds. I have already recalculated the tractor beam arrays."
He hit a final, heavy keystroke. On the main viewscreen, a localized magnetic pulse fired from a secondary satellite, perfectly vaporizing the debris into harmless dust.
Batman stood up. He turned his back on them, his cape snapping like a whip in the quiet room.
"The threat is neutralized," Batman rumbled, his voice echoing off the metallic walls. "Do not let your focus waver again."
Before anyone could even formulate a sentence, he strode back into the teleporter bay, punched a code into the wall, and vanished in a flash of blue light.
The room fell dead silent.
"See?!" Green Arrow whispered, pointing wildly at the empty teleporter. "Zero hesitation! The man is a machine! He doesn't sleep! He's just waiting in the dark, watching us, judging our response times!"
"It is truly terrifying," Green Lantern muttered, rubbing his eyes. "I feel like if I stub my toe in the kitchen, he’s going to materialize out of the refrigerator to tell me I lack discipline."
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Bruce was on his fourth cup of coffee, and he was currently experiencing a level of exhaustion that made his teeth itch.
I am going to die in this chair, Bruce thought, his forehead resting heavily against the cold edge of the Batcomputer console. If I close my eyes for more than four seconds, my brain turns off. Why did I drink that coffee? It’s not working. My heart is just vibrating now.
It had been a brutal seventy-two hours. He had spent three consecutive nights tracking a smuggling ring in the Gotham docks, only to be interrupted by a barrage of Justice League alerts.
Every time his wrist comm beeped, Bruce’s anxiety spiked through the roof. He was absolutely terrified that if he didn't show up immediately, the League would think he was unreliable, realize he was just a twenty-two-year-old kid from New Jersey who didn't belong in a room with gods, and kick him out of the group.
Alfred told me delegation is a sign of a good leader, Bruce groaned mentally, staring blearily at the blinking satellite monitor. But if I don't go, Superman will do it. And Superman is so nice. If Superman does everything, they’re going to realize they don't need a guy whose only superpower is being rich and having a lot of unresolved trauma.
Suddenly, a localized proximity alarm pinged on his secondary screen. A piece of space junk was falling toward the atmosphere.
Bruce panicked. Oh god, they’re all in the monitor womb right now. They’re going to see it. If I don't fix it before they notice, they’re going to think Batman is slacking off.
He scrambled for his cowl, accidentally knocking over a stack of empty energy drink cans that went clattering across the stone floor. He shoved the heavy rubber mask over his head, nearly pinching his own ear in his haste, and sprinted for the teleporter array in the back of the cave.
When he materialized on the Watchtower, his chest was heaving. He forced himself to slow his breathing, locking his posture into the rigid, terrifying "military stance" he had spent hours practicing. He marched into the room, his boots feeling like they weighed fifty pounds each.
He saw Superman reaching for the console. No, no, no, don't touch it, let me do it, I need the participation points!
Bruce lunged forward, intentionally throwing his arm out to intercept Superman’s hand. He hit the keys frantically, his fingers trembling with exhaustion, blindly relying on the automated scripts he had pre-programmed into the Watchtower's mainframe last week.
"Batman," Superman said. "We... we hadn't even sent the alert out yet."
Bruce froze. Oh no. They hadn't sent it. I just sprinted up here like a psycho. I look like a stalker. Say something professional. Say something that makes you sound like a tactical genius and not a caffeine-addled college dropout.
He swallowed hard, forcing his vocal cords into that deep, agonizingly scratchy growl. "I monitor the orbital trajectories. You are slow. The debris would have breached the thermosphere in eighty-four seconds. I have already recalculated the tractor beam arrays."
Nailed it, Bruce thought, a wave of intense relief washing over him as the satellite successfully fired on screen. Assertive. Authoritative. They definitely think I have everything under control.
He turned around, threw his cape over his shoulder with what he hoped was dramatic flair, and barked, "The threat is neutralized. Do not let your focus waver again."
He marched back to the teleporter as fast as his legs could carry him, punched the return code with a shaking finger, and collapsed the exact second the blue light deposited him back in the Batcave.
He fell flat on his face onto the cold mat, his cowl hitting the floor with a dull thud. He didn't even have the energy to take the mask off.
"I take it the orbital defense went smoothly, Master Bruce?" Alfred’s dry voice echoed from the walkway.
Bruce just let out a long, muffled groan into the floorboards.
Dick scrambled over, wearing his Robin pajamas, and sat cross-legged next to Bruce’s head. He poked the black bat-ear on the cowl. "B? Are you dead?"
"Practically," Bruce croaked, his voice cracking completely back into his normal twenty-two-year-old pitch. "I had to use the scary voice again, Dick. My throat hurts. I think I scraped my vocal cords."
"You gotta stop answering every single alarm, B," Dick said, shaking his head sagely as he opened a fresh pack of fruit snacks. "They're gonna think you're weird. Like a needy puppy."
"I am not a needy puppy," Bruce mumbled into the floor, his eyes already closing. "I am the night. I am... establishing... operational dominance..."
Within three seconds, the terrifying, unfeeling creature of Gotham was fast asleep on the cave floor, still fully armored, wrapped in his cape like a heavily fortified burrito.
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The Justice League lounge was unusually quiet at two in the afternoon, save for the soft hum of the monitors and the rustle of a tabloid magazine that Green Arrow was casually flipping through.
"I’m just saying," Green Arrow remarked, tossing the magazine onto the central coffee table. The cover featured a glossy, high-definition photo of a young, messy-haired billionaire stumbling out of a high-end Gotham charity gala with a model on each arm. "The kid is an absolute trainwreck. Twenty-two years old, more money than God, and zero adult supervision. It’s a miracle he hasn't accidentally funded a supervillain with his trust fund yet."
Superman glanced up from his tablet, offering a sympathetic frown. "It’s easy to judge from the outside, Oliver. Bruce Wayne lost his parents when he was just a boy. That kind of trauma... well, it affects people differently. He’s just a kid trying to find his footing under a massive spotlight."
"He’s finding his footing in the bottom of a champagne glass," Green Lantern scoffed, leaning back in his chair. "Last week he reportedly bought a yacht just to see if he could park it in a public swimming pool. He’s the poster boy for trust-fund privilege. Completely oblivious to the real world."
"A man with no discipline is a danger to himself and his community," Wonder Woman observed mildly, sipping her tea. "But perhaps he merely lacks a proper mentor to guide his spirit."
A shadow stretched across the doorway.
The League collectively went quiet as Batman glided into the lounge. As always, his presence completely shifted the atmosphere. He looked like an apex predator carved from stone and darkness, his cape heavy and perfectly still around his shoulders. He didn't say a word. He simply walked over to the secondary monitor station, his rigid, terrifying posture radiating a cold, unapproachable aura of absolute focus.
Green Arrow grinned, leaning over the back of his couch. "Hey, Batman. Perfect timing. You’re from Gotham. What’s the local consensus on your city's favorite billionaire disaster, Bruce Wayne? Ever had to pull him out of a ditch?"
Batman froze.
He didn't turn around. He didn't blink. He sat so entirely paralyzed that Green Lantern wondered if he had suddenly detected a microscopic chemical weapon in the air. The silence stretched for five, ten, fifteen agonizing seconds. The tension in the room plummeted into sub-zero temperatures.
"Batman?" Superman asked, his super-hearing picking up a sudden, bizarrely erratic spike in the vigilante's heart rate. Was he angry? Was he tracking a Wayne Enterprises security breach? Was he disgusted by the mere mention of Gotham's frivolous elite?
Slowly, deliberately, Batman's terrifying, demon-eared cowl turned toward Green Arrow. The glowing white lenses locked onto the archer with a flat, soul-crushing intensity that made Oliver instantly regret opening his mouth.
Batman opened his mouth. His voice was a deep, horrific, gravelly scrape—but for a split second, it hitched, sounding strangely breathless before settling back into a terrifying growl.
"Who?" Batman rasped.
Green Arrow blinked. "Uh. Bruce Wayne? The guy who owns half your city? The billionaire?"
Batman stood up. His muscles were so profoundly rigid he looked like a statue being moved by hydraulics. He swept his cape over his shoulder in a sharp, blinding blur of darkness that practically whipped the air in Green Arrow's face.
"I do not waste time on... irrelevant civilians," Batman rumbled, his gravelly voice echoing off the walls as he marched briskly toward the teleporter bay. "My grid is... localized to the criminal element."
He punched the teleporter console with enough force to nearly dent the metal, stepped into the blue light, and vanished before anyone could even breathe.
"Wow," Green Lantern muttered into the stunned silence. "He really hates rich people."
"No," Green Arrow said, rubbing his arms to get rid of the goosebumps. "That was something else. That was the cold, calculated dismissal of a man who views high society as a plague. Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying."
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Bruce was having an out-of-body experience, and he was ninety-nine percent sure his soul was currently hovering somewhere near the Watchtower's ceiling rafters, weeping.
Please stop talking about me. Please stop talking about me. Please stop talking about me, Bruce chanted frantically in his own head, his hands gripping the edges of the monitor desk so hard his leather-clad knuckles were turning white. Oh my god, they're reading the tabloids. They know about the swimming pool yacht. I only did that because Alfred told me I needed to build a public alibi! I didn't think Superman would actually read about it!
His face was burning hot beneath the heavy rubber of his cowl. He felt like he was suffocating. Superman was defending his trauma, Wonder Woman thought he needed a spiritual mentor, and Green Arrow thought he was a champagne-soaked trainwreck.
I am a trainwreck, Bruce thought, a wave of profound, humiliating panic washing over him. I'm twenty-two and I don't know how to talk to people. If they find out I'm Bruce Wayne, they're going to realize I'm just the idiot from the magazine cover. They're going to think Batman is a joke.
Then, Green Arrow addressed him directly. "What’s the local consensus on your city's favorite billionaire disaster, Bruce Wayne?"
Bruce's brain completely, utterly evaporated.
Every single social script he had ever practiced vanished into the void. His throat tightened. He couldn't remember how to use the scary voice. He couldn't even remember his own name. Panic tore through his chest like a freight train, his heart hammering at a frantic four hundred beats per minute.
Say something cool. Say something dark. Say something that completely separates Batman from Bruce Wayne, his mind shrieked.
"Who?" Bruce barked out.
The moment the syllable left his mouth, Bruce wanted to walk into the vacuum of space. Who?! he thought in absolute agony. Who?! He's the most famous person in Gotham! You live there! You're supposed to be the world's greatest detective and you just asked 'who' about a global celebrity?!
The room went dead silent. Green Arrow looked confused.
Bruce didn't let him speak. He practically vaulted away from the desk, his cape flying wildly as he did a militaristic power-walk toward the teleporter bay. His legs felt like jelly inside his heavy combat boots. He forced his voice down into the deepest, most gravelly, aggressive scratch he could muster to cover up the fact that he was actively hyperventilating.
"I do not waste time on... irrelevant civilians. My grid is... localized to the criminal element."
He smashed his hand onto the teleporter pad, slammed his eyes shut, and the moment the blue light hit him, he let out a pathetic, high-pitched whimper.
He materialized in the Batcave and immediately collapsed forward, catching himself on his hands and knees on the cold stone floor. He tore the cowl off his head, his sweat-soaked hair sticking to his forehead as he gasped for air.
"Master Bruce?" Alfred asked, calmly walking over with a tray of hot tea and a plate of chocolate chip cookies. "You look as though you’ve just escaped a hostage situation."
"Alfred," Bruce choked out, his normal twenty-two-year-old voice trembling with sheer, unadulterated mortification. "The Justice League was talking about me. They were reading Gossip Gotham."
Dick slid down the supercomputer banister, landing perfectly on his feet with a half-eaten apple in his hand. "Did they find out you're Batman, B?!"
"No," Bruce groaned, burying his burning red face directly into the cold stone floor. "Green Arrow asked me what I thought of Bruce Wayne. And I panicked. I used the scary voice and asked him 'Who?'."
Dick stared at him for three seconds, then burst into a fit of hysterical, breathless nine-year-old laughter, dropping his apple onto the floor. "You said who?! B, you're on the cover of the magazine! Your face is literally on the blimps downtown!"
"I was under pressure!" Bruce yelled defensively, rolling onto his back and pulling his cape over his face to hide his shame. "It was a high-stress tactical environment! I had to distance myself from the brand!"
Alfred sighed softly, setting the tea tray down on the console and picking up Dick's discarded apple. "Well, look on the bright side, Master Bruce. If the Justice League ever deduces your secret identity, it certainly won't be because they accused you of possessing an excess of social grace."
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The Justice League had always pictured Batman as a hulking, broad-shouldered monolith of dark vengeance. His sweeping cape, heavy tactical armor, and thick combat boots easily made him look over six feet of solid, terrifying muscle. He was their towering, silent enforcer.
Until the core stabilization emergency of Sector 4.
The Watchtower’s primary cooling system had suffered a catastrophic micro-meteorite rupture. Red proximity alarms were blaring, a harsh Klaxon echoing through the corridors, and the main computer’s automated voice was calmly counting down the three minutes left before the entire structural grid melted down.
"The main manual override valve is jammed!" Green Lantern yelled over the deafening hiss of escaping super-heated steam. He tried to force it open with a ring construct, but the localized electromagnetic interference from the ruptured core was shattering his constructs like glass.
"I can't get an angle on it!" Superman shouted, his vision blocked by the thick, opaque radioactive vapor filling the narrow crawlspace. "The gap is too small for me to fit without tearing through the primary coolant lines!"
"We have ninety seconds!" Flash panicked, vibrating his hands wildly. "Where is Batman?! He built this entire system!"
The teleporter bay hissed open.
Through the thick, swirling red emergency lights and the heavy white steam, a figure came sprinting out. But it wasn't the towering, armored silhouette of the Bat.
It was a remarkably slight, almost delicate figure. He wasn't wearing his heavy Kevlar chest piece, his armored leggings, or his sweeping, scalloped cape. In fact, he wasn't wearing an actual uniform at all. He was wearing a pair of baggy, faded black sweatpants and a massively oversized, white The Cure band t-shirt that hung loosely off his slight frame like a dress. He was barefoot. The only piece of the uniform he actually had on was his heavy leather cowl—the black demon ears pointing up into the steam.
Because he wasn't wearing his heavy neck guard, the cowl sat slightly loose, making his head look entirely too big for his remarkably slender neck. He looked like a goth bobblehead.
Without the massive armor padding and the illusion of the cape, the terrifying Batman was... tiny. He was a slender, pale, wildly compact young man who looked like he barely cracked 130 pounds soaking wet.
"What the—" Green Arrow blinked, his jaw dropping. "Who is that?! Did the Bat send his sidekick?!"
The small figure completely ignored them. He darted forward with incredible, agile speed, sliding beneath a low-hanging pipe that would have clipped Superman's shoulder. He reached the narrow, claustrophobic crawlspace and, without a single moment of hesitation, wiggled his slight, t-shirt-swallowed frame directly into the tiny, crushing gap between the overheating coolant lines.
"Wait! Kid! It’s highly radioactive in there!" Green Lantern yelled, reaching out.
From deep within the cramped, dark machinery, a familiar, deep, horrifyingly scratchy gravelly growl echoed out.
"Quiet. I am overriding the pressure seal."
The League collectively froze. The voice was unmistakable. It was the demonic, soul-crushing rasp of Batman. But seeing it come out of a barefoot body that looked like a skinny, stressed-out college student who had just been dragged out of bed was an absolute assault on their senses.
Inside the crawlspace, Bruce was grunting, his small, unarmored shoulders wedged tightly against the pipes as he used a compact wrench to smash a jammed hydraulic lever. With a loud, metallic CLANG, the lever shifted.
The emergency Klaxons instantly ceased. The red flashing lights flickered back to a calm, steady blue, and the automated voice chimed: Cooling system stabilized. Core temperature returning to normal.
A collective sigh of relief washed over the room, immediately followed by a wave of profound, absolute bewilderment.
Slowly, the small figure wiggled backward out of the narrow crawlspace. He emerged covered in black grease, the graphic of Robert Smith's face on his t-shirt now thoroughly smudged with soot. His bare feet were grey with dust.
Superman stared. Flash stared. Wonder Woman’s eyebrows shot straight up into her hairline.
"Batman?" Superman asked, his voice cracking slightly with confusion. Now that the heavy lead-lined armor plates were gone, Superman’s x-ray vision and super-hearing easily cut through the thin cotton. He's... his bone structure is so small. He has the muscle mass of a gymnast, not a tank. His heart is beating like a scared rabbit.
Batman stood up. He tried to pull himself into his usual rigid, imposing, military posture, but without the shoulder pads and the cape, he just looked like a very moody, intense, and incredibly messy teenager standing under a spotlight.
"The seal... was corroded," Batman rasped, his deep, demonic voice completely mismatched with his tiny frame. He pointed a slender, grease-stained finger at Green Lantern. "Re-calibrate your construct frequencies. To bypass the electromagnetic interference next time."
"Uh," Green Lantern stammered, looking down at the terrifying vigilante who now barely reached his shoulder. "Right. Yeah. Will do... big guy."
Batman gave a single, stiff, ominous nod. He threw his arm back to dramatically sweep his cape over his shoulder—only to realize he wasn't wearing one. His hand just awkwardly swiped through the empty air, rustling the fabric of his oversized t-shirt.
He froze for a fraction of a second, his white lenses staring blankly ahead. Then, with an incredibly brisk, tense stride, he power-walked past the stunned Leaguers, his bare feet making quiet slap-slap-slap sounds against the cold metal floor. He punched the console and vanished in a flash of blue light.
The room remained dead silent for a full ten seconds.
"He's a baby," Green Arrow finally whispered, his voice trembling with a mix of awe and horror. "The terrifying creature of the night... is a tiny, scrawny kid who listens to 80s goth rock in sweatpants."
"His posture," Wonder Woman murmured, her eyes wide. "He looked so massive in the armor. But beneath it... he is but a small, fierce fledgling."
"Did you see his feet?!" Flash squeaked, waving his arms. "I could snap his ankles like twigs! Who let a feral middle-schooler build a space station?! I feel so unsafe right now!"
"He’s not a teenager," Superman said softly, rubbing his temples as his brain tried to process the data. "But he’s... young. Really young. And incredibly small. Oh god... we’ve been letting a tiny, stressed-out kid run our tactical briefings."
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Bruce was in the absolute depths of hell, and he was currently contemplating throwing himself into the Batcave’s underground river and letting the current carry him away forever.
They saw me, Bruce thought frantically, ripping the heavy leather cowl off his head with trembling hands. His hair was a chaotic, sweat-matted disaster, and the black makeup smeared around his eyes made him look incredibly pale and wildly sleep-deprived. They saw my real shoulders. They saw my sweatpants. They know I’m a fraud.
He had been in the middle of a desperate, five-hour sleep cycle after a brutal three-day stakeout when the Watchtower alarm had blared on his monitor. Knowing the core was going to blow, he hadn't had the three minutes required to bolt on the heavy Kevlar plates, the chest armor, the thigh guards, or the weighted boots. He had just grabbed his cowl from the nightstand and jumped straight into the teleporter.
I swiped for the cape, Bruce groaned, slamming his forehead against the cold metal desk of the Batcomputer. I did the cape sweep and there was no cape. I just rustled my own oversized shirt. Green Arrow was looking right at me. He’s going to make a joke about it. They’re all going to realize I’m just a tiny twenty-two-year-old.
"I take it the emergency was resolved, Master Bruce?" Alfred asked, calmly walking down the steps with a wet towel and a fresh bottle of makeup remover.
"They know, Alfred," Bruce choked out, his normal, soft, twenty-two-year-old voice filled with pure, unadulterated angst. He slumped in the massive computer chair, looking completely swallowed by the leather and his massive shirt. "I didn't have the armor on. I looked tiny. I was barefoot. Superman looked at me like I was a lost puppy. Wonder Woman looked like she wanted to wrap me in a blanket."
Dick slid down from the upper walkway, landing on his feet and holding a half-eaten pop-tart. He took one look at Bruce’s greasy The Cure shirt, his messy hair, and his tiny, slumped posture, and let out a loud snort.
"You look like a wet rat, B," Dick giggled, taking a bite of his pastry. "Did you have to crawl through the pipes in your pajamas?"
"It was a critical system failure, Dick!" Bruce snapped defensively, his face turning a furious bright red as he grabbed the towel from Alfred to scrub the black grease off his face. "I saved the space station! I am a critical asset to the team!"
"Yeah, but you're short without your boots," Dick pointed out remorselessly, swinging his legs on the edge of the console. "Green Lantern is way bigger than you. They probably think Batman is just a really angry kid."
"I am not an angry kid! I am a creature of pure shadows!" Bruce yelled back, though the effect was entirely ruined by the fact that he was currently shivering in his baggy clothes and had a smudge of black grease on the tip of his nose.
Alfred gently took the towel back, using a corner of it to wipe the stray grease from Bruce's nose with the practiced patience of a saint.
"Do not despair, Master Bruce," Alfred said dryly. "If anything, your lack of physical intimidation today will only heighten their terror next week when you return in full panoply. They will simply assume you possess the mystical ability to alter your physical mass at will."
Bruce pouted, wrapping his arms tightly around his knees and pulling them to his chest inside his giant t-shirt. "I'm never taking the armor off again, Alfred. I'm going to sleep in the cape."