Batman was crouched in front of the kid, quietly "negotiating" with him.
And it was taking everything in Nightwing not to coo.
The tiny little meta boy was standing between them and Tim, who Nightwing was pretty sure had just gone through the 'unconscious' phase and straight into the 'catching up with sleep after not sleeping for days' phase. The kid was all puffed up, chubby cheeks blown out as he glared at Batman with angry, offended big blue eyes.
Nightwing watched Batman's shoulders tense as the man fought off either a laugh or a sigh.
"Son, he's not your father; he's too young."
Those baby blues started to tear up.
"You can do so much better than that," Robin snarked, motioning towards a sleeping Red Robin.
The boy's tears slowed and he hiccupped, rubbing furiously at his cheeks as he stared at Robin.
"You could choose a far superior father figure than Red Robin. In fact, I would say my suggestion comes with many recommendations."
Nightwing watched Batman subtly try to shake his head at Robin. Nightwing was inclined to agree: Bruce didn't need anymore kids.
"...Who?" The boy asked suspiciously, tears starting to dry up from the tantrum.
Nightwing stumbled when Robin yanked him forward.
"Nightwing is the superior father figure, far greater than Red Robin. I will...concede that perhaps Red Robin would be a good uncle. But if you desire a father, Nightwing is the best choice."
Nightwing listened in shock as Robin tried to sell him to a toddler like a car salesman. He caught a glimpse of Batman's betrayed expression before Robin shoved him closer to the tiny kid.
The little kid hemmed and hawed, and actually stepped out from between Batman and Red Robin to get a closer look at Nightwing.
"How's he better?" The kid asked, tentatively reaching out and poking at Nightwing's knee brace.
"He enforces bed time, provides emotional comfort, gives the best rated hugs, is amenable to play, has the energy to keep up with someone your age, and he has a dog. This is, of course, a condensed list-"
A tiny hand latched onto his, and Nightwing stared in shock at the little boy.
Nightwing turned to Batman for help.
Batman dutifully ignored Nightwing, opting instead to go over Red Robin to make sure he was safe for transport.
Nightwing sighed. Fuck it; what harm would there be in playing along?
"Three questions," he started, placing his free hand on his hip, "First, do you want ice cream? Second, can I carry you to the ice cream shop? Third, what's your name?"
"Danny!" The little boy cried, practically vibrating in place as he held his arms out for uppies.
Nightwing complied, unable to resist cuddling the heck out of that kid. He was so cute! His big ol' eyes reminded him of Tim when he'd been an itty bitty thirteen year old!
Nightwing tried to be subtle as he tugged Danny back to get a good look at him.
Button nose. Face shape. Eyes. The chattering.
The hero felt his eyes widen as his head whipped around to Batman. Batman, who was already hauling Red Robin to the Batmobile to return to the Manor. Tucked into his hand and held tight was a small bag, and Nightwing was willing to bet it held some hair from little Danny.
"Keep him occupied, I'll look into it," Batman's quiet command came over the comms.
Nightwing swallowed his questions, opting instead to unhook his grapple and show it off to Danny.
Bruce glared at the screen, silently ordering it to display different results.
Faced with lack of choice, he proceeded to do something that would get him scolded at minimum by not only Alfred, but literally everyone else in the family.
He forced Tim to wake up.
"What?" His son garbled as he sat up, looking bewildered.
Understandable; if Tim was sleeping, everyone had strict orders to let him be.
"Was it you?" Bruce asked, voice sharp and unforgiving as he placed a tablet in Tim's lap.
Tim blearily read through the tablet.
"This isn't...this isn't possible." Tim muttered, wide awake as he went through the DNA test results. "The lab was destroyed, and I never made another one. This isn't-"
Bruce fought back a sigh of relief. He honestly hadn't known what he would do if it turned out that Tim had been obsessively messing with cloning technology behind his back.
"Could CADMUS have gotten ahold of your discarded tests?" He asked, voice decidedly gentler.
"The samples...would have been contaminated if they did that. He would have had powers they couldn't plan for. He did, if they were only able to get him to four before he escaped." He muttered, sounding more and more horrified the further he got along.
"Stop spiraling. It happened, so what do you do now?" Bruce interrupted, resting a hand on the tablet and forcing it down. Tim did best when he made lists for himself, thought about things objectively.
Bruce would be the one to freak out internally, this time.
Tim stared at the back of the tablet, like he could still see the test results.
Unknown Meta, Alias "Danny"
Intangibility, enhanced strength, more to be found.
Age: 4
Hair: black
Eyes: blue
Height: 30.5 inches, 2.5 feet
Vitamin deficiencies detected, further DNA required for more comprehensive analysis.
Parents found;
Timothy Drake.
Conner Kent.
"Kon," Tim interrupted, his voice the strange sort of level it was when something really, really bad had happened.
There was a pause, and Kon did his best not to just launch himself to Tim's location, gave Tim time to compile what needed to be said.
"When you died, do you remember the cloning attempts I did?"
Oh Kon really was not liking where this was going.
"You remember that it was destroyed?"
"...It wasn't destroyed enough. Someone got their hands on the remains, we think."
Shit. Shit shit shit. There was another Super clone.
"Are they friendly? Do you need help?" If there was another Super, he couldn't afford to startle them into doing something stupid, so he continued to fight against the need to just be there at that exact second.
"Oh yeah, he's very friendly. Dick's with him right now."
That had been said...oddly. Stilted. Like Tim wasn't able to believe it.
"So what's wrong? You sound like something's wrong."
The pause this time had an almost tangible tension.
"There's...there's no way to ease into this. His name is Danny, he's four, and he's biologically our kid."
Kon landed on the ground with a quiet thud, phone held loosely against his ear.
"Yeah. He's ours. He can density shift, which you can't do, but with the level of contamination in that lab after we got done wrecking it I'm not surprised something new popped up. Current theory is that's how he got away."
He may have been made in cloning equipment, but it sounded like Danny was as much of a clone as Kon was, which was by definition, not at all.
Just a kid, created through unconventional means.
He kinda got how Clark felt, he couldn't deny that this was a violation, but he also knew how it was to be on the other side of the spectrum. This was just a kid, and he hadn't had any way to control who his parents were.
Besides, the other parent was Tim. Not an arch-nemesis, not some third-rate villain, Tim. His best friend.
Whoever had stolen Tim's research and done this, he'd find them and deal with them eventually.
Perhaps that made it easier to deal with than Clark's situation had been. The fact that he knew and trusted the other parent.
And man, how excited was Jon gonna be to be an uncle? Kon wasn't sure what title Clark would want, they'd never settled into a parent-child relationship, but he bet Clark would be over the fucking moon.
Once the older man had confirmed that Kon was okay with it, of course.
Unless that whole chapter of growth had been for show, and the man just hated clones on sight.
No, no that was bullshit and Kon knew it. Clark would be thrilled. He was being dumb and The Thoughts were just taking over again.
Those Thoughts could wait, he had bigger and more important things to consider.
Like, what would his and Tim's kid even look like?
He bet Danny was cute. Kon was, and Tim definitely was, so there was no way their kid wasn't.
Only one way to find out, and he'd left Tim hanging for long enough.
"Okay. Okay, I'm gonna. I'm gonna go see Dick, I think."
"Can you pick me up on your way there?"
"Didn't you already meet him?"
There was silence. Tim's 'I'm avoiding a thing because it'll disappoint who I'm talking to' silence. Oh no. He hadn't been awake, had he?
"I was a little unconscious when he found me."
"Being hit across the head will do that, yes."
"Hit across the-are you okay now?!"
