Chapter Text
In the end, it was luck that Bruce found him.
He was an innocent, oblivious to the violence that brought him into the world, little hand curled around a plain, beige blanket, breath huffing out between his parted lips. He was small and in the white, sterile box of a room that Luthor had him in, he seemed even smaller.
Bruce didn't need to read the thousands of files that weighted down the hard-drives of every nearby computer to be sure, even if they were being transferred to his system as he stood, stunned, in the too small room. In truth, he knew Luthor well enough to trust that the bullshit he'd written on the door was real.
C.A.D.M.U.S - EXP XIII - KNIGHT SEQUENCE
He burned the place to the ground while a virus (so vicious it would cripple even his interface) worked its way through the database, decimating anything with the word CADMUS or thirteen in it and destroying everything else.
Everything was gone by the time he finally convinced himself to take a step forward and let his hand - usually broken and bloody and split around the bone - curl under the head and chest of such a small, breakable life.
Bruce hoped with everything he was that Luthor's scientists were paranoid enough to keep everything in one place, that he wouldn't have to go searching for any leftover trace of what had occurred in that too white, too bright, too cruel place. The lab was secure - very secure - and it was off-the-books, too. It had taken Bruce a considerable amount of hacking, and a lot more planning, to find the black site he eventually managed to beat his way into. Hopefully whatever plans Luthor had, ended with his intervention.
Lex's lab was a husk when Bruce finally left, the tiny body wrapped in his cape, huddled close and snoring into his armour. He drove the Batmobile back as quickly as he could, but with enough care to not startle the baby awake with the roar of engines.
Alfred was both bemused and highly concerned when Bruce rolled into the cave forty minutes later.
"You seem to have acquired a baby, Master Wayne," he said, tone patient, watching his ward clamber awkwardly from the car, careful of the cargo he carried. His cowl, already discarded, meant the distraught, desperate expression on his face was visible.
"Luthor," Bruce offered, like it was enough of an explanation, throat too thick to push anything more meaningful out. In truth, he didn't know what he could say, or how he could explain to his mentor just what - just who - he had found.
The baby was quiet, still and unaffected by the journey he'd undertaken, and it was only when Bruce placed the infant down on the nearest soft surface - the training mats in the cave - that he began to fuss. It was a little chuffing sound, the beginnings of a cry, and he began clutching tighter to the blanket he'd refused to relinquish. The billionaire had wrestled himself free of his suit, dumping it where he stood, and finished pulling on sweat pants when the baby finally opened his eyes and levelled a brilliant, bright blue gaze directly at him.
Clark's eyes.
Alfred had returned a moment later with milk in an old fashioned looking bottle. Bruce didn't need to ask to know it had once been his.
"Master Bruce," he prompted, gesturing a cradle.
The baby was squirming a little but settled in Bruce's arms easily enough, fingers of his one hand spreading wide over the man's chest, seemingly fascinated by the chest hair now in his eye-line, the other still holding the blanket. His focus shifted immediately when the bottle came into view, a squawking sound splitting the silence of the cave and the baby flapped his hands, much to Alfred's amusement if the soft look on his face was any indication.
He suckled eagerly, the occasional drop spilling out from his lips and down his chin. Bruce wiped them away carefully with his thumb, painfully aware that the smell of smoke and leather still lingered on his skin.
The pair stared for a few moments and just when Bruce could sense Alfred was about to ask the question no doubt burning in his mind, he answered it.
"He's Clark's son," he offered. "Genetic experimentation. Cloning techniques," he added, seeing his guardian's eyebrows disappear into his hairline.
The Englishman nodded after a moment, composing himself. "I suppose we should contact Mrs. Kent, or Ms. Lane then -"
"No." The word was out of his mouth before he could stop it. Alfred was staring, judging.
"You have nothing to feel guilty for Master Wayne -"
"He's mine." His throat was gravel and the confession hurt more than he wanted to admit, but he couldn't find it within himself to take it back.
He wanted to be selfless, to let the boy go - to let him live with a pair of women who would love him more than life itself. Who would honour him and who would tell him about his father, about a man who had soared in the clouds and saved people because it was the right thing to do, even when he didn't owe the world a thing. He should relinquish the baby to Alfred's arms, let him carry him off, into the hold of a grieving mother and let her nurture again, or to the lover of the man he helped kill. He knew Lois wanted to be a mother to Clark's children - and here and now, even with Clark gone, she could be.
He should think of what was best for the baby, so small and so new, so fragile, even with the blood of an alien in his veins.
But he couldn't lose another son.
"Mast-"
"Luthor used my DNA too, Alfred," he grit out, finally tearing his gaze away from his child and meeting the judgement of the man who had been his father for decades. "He's mine."
The Englishman's mouth was a round 'O', surprise lining his features. It took a few moments before the shock melted away into something softer, something like pride and grief and hope and every other unsteady emotion he was capable of feeling. "Ah, yes," he said after a moment, tone a little wobbly. "I see now. He has the Wayne jawline."
It took three days of non-invasive tests and the baby sleeping in his arms for Bruce to be convinced the baby wasn't going anywhere. That the science wouldn't fail and his son wouldn't simply cease to be. It took another twelve hours after that for him to feel secure enough to order baby furniture. Changing tables, closets, toys, play-mats, dressers - all were promptly delivered to the lake house with urgency and, with an added handful of hundreds, discretion.
The crib Bruce made himself. It had to be strong enough not to yield to the tantrums of a Kryptonian-Human hybrid after all.
"They wanted to age him," Bruce greeted Alfred one afternoon as he entered the lake house, groceries in tow, two days after their home had been overtaken by nappies, rompers and enough formula to sink Stryker's Island. He was sat, watching his son, bracketed by soft blankets and stuffed toys, blink at him sleepily. He'd been fighting the urge to succumb for ten minutes or more, choosing to stare at Bruce instead.
"Age him?"
"They were aiming for fifteen. The plan was continual growth without consciousness and then plant false memories subsequently. But, with so many previous failures, they decided to act in two stages. Birth him after gestation and then age him up at around two months."
"But they didn't," Alfred placated.
He huffed, a self-depreciating thing. "They could have."
"You saved him. He's safe here."
Bruce turned then. "Is he?"
JOKE'S ON YOU BATMAN.
It was an entire week later that Alfred finally raised the notion of a name. All this time and his boy didn't have one, he'd simply been "the baby" or "baby Wayne". The thing ever remotely resembling a name written on the lab work was Thirteen - which angered Bruce and gave him a great sense of sorrow in equal measure.
"Thomas?" the butler suggested. "After your father?"
"No," Bruce shook his head. "He should be his own person. He should feel like he's himself, not living up to shadows or ghosts of men." His eyes drifted to the case and shame overwhelmed him. He'd made so many mistakes with his sons, he didn't want to make them again with his littlest. Part of him wondered why Alfred hadn't fought harder to get the baby to Martha Kent, or even Lois. He wondered why Alfred trusted him, again, even when his track record was 0 for 3 in keeping his children safe. He wondered why Alfred had let him keep the baby away from them both, keeping them in the dark about the miracle part of their loved one that Bruce held in his arms. He wondered if Alfred would eventually demand that Martha Kent be allowed to see her grandchild and ignore the panic that would rise in him at her, at Lois, at Diana, at anyone, taking his child from him.
"Something neutral then?" the man continued, breezing past the tension with all the skill of a mediator. "Alexander?"
"Luthor."
"Edward?"
"Riddler."
"Jonathan?"
"Scarecrow."
"Harvey?"
"Two-Face."
"You're making this extremely difficult Master Wayne."
"My apologies for having an aversion to giving my son a villain's name," he deadpanned.
"Cornelius," Alfred offered. Bruce pulled a face and the old man scowled. "You could offer some suggestions."
"In the face of yours?" Alfred levelled him with a glare. "What about Samuel?"
"Samuel Wayne."
"Or Conner Kent," Bruce whispered, a pit in his stomach, finger stroking his son's cheek with all the nervousness of a new parent. None of his sons shared his last name: Grayson, Todd, Drake. Maybe that was a sign. Maybe the Wayne name was supposed to die with him.
A hand settled on his shoulder, heavy and determined, pressing its point home with as much force as it could muster. "He may very well be a Kent, but he is a Wayne, Master Bruce. Would you deny him his name, sir?"
A long silence followed where Alfred politely pretended he couldn't hear the hitches in his ward's breathing.
"Conner Samuel Kent-Wayne then?" He finally choked out. There was something in his throat, something that couldn't be dislodged by a cough or two - a thickness that lingered. "I suppose he would be Kon-El then. For his Kryptonian side."
"Perfect," Alfred agreed.
And that was it.
A few strings pulled, a forged birth certificate with no mother and BRUCE THOMAS WAYNE in the place of father, and his boy was in the world.
And Bruce Wayne became a father of four.