Chapter Text
For some reason, after having saved the world, Bruce assumes he would have had more free time to do whatever it is he wanted. The chances of him actually taking advantage of said free time to relax are slim, but it's an attractive concept to have fought for.
That is clearly not the case, however.
"Sometimes, I wish you were a terrible person," Bruce deadpans, rubbing the very little sleep he got last night out of his eyes, "That way, at least I'd get more than two hours of sleep."
Clark laughs heartily, clapping a hand around Bruce's shoulder to shake him awake, practically dragging him from his bedroom. He's barely given Bruce any time to make himself look somewhat presentable and not like a HR nightmare as they go barrelling through the hallways, "Come on! This will be fun."
Clark's definition of fun is signing up to volunteer for the PPDC Jaeger Academy Charity Programmes. Which, really, is so nice of him that it makes Bruce sick. He's practically weeping with joy. Bruce only wishes Clark would fulfil his dreams of being a lovely person after asking Bruce if he too, wants to sign up to volunteer for the charity programme.
It's not that Bruce is opposed to the community aspect of it or anything, especially given a reasonable chunk of his 'saving the world'-income is poured back into those facilities as it is — but there's a time and place for these things. He and Clark had just returned from their most recent close encounter with a breach, a long few days of travelling and fighting. Bruce was quite looking forward to spending their successful return in bed for a few extra hours, before he embarks on his next patrol of the coastline later that week.
"Stop scowling, I'm sorry I didn't tell you that I signed us both up to help today, I know it's your day off," Clark replies with fake sheepishness, as if he isn't also running on an unhealthy lack of sleep, because he's probably not sorry at all, "But on the bright side, we'll get to hang out all day together!"
As they finally find themselves in the Ranger training rooms, Bruce rubs his eyes again, pointedly not explaining how he was planning to spend his day off working later anyway, because that would definitely not go over well. "We are Drift partners, Clark," he states, "I see you every day."
"This is going to be so fun!" Clark replies, completely ignoring him, depositing Bruce near his own locker before running off to change into his training gear.
He stops halfway to his locker abruptly, and Bruce watches as Clark seems to stand there in thought, arguing about something to himself internally. Whatever it is, one side is clearly winning, since Clark turns back around to look at Bruce with a pinched expression. Bruce wonders if it's just his lack of sleep, but Clark is looking incredibly anxious, which is rather uncharacteristic of the usually unassuming individual, who best rivals Bruce when it comes to repressing his every emotions.
It's one of the reasons they get along so well, in their heads and in life.
"Out of curiosity," he starts in an attempt to sound casual, and Bruce braces, because he knows the question that's about to be asked of him, "Has… Dick spoken to you recently?"
Bruce clears his throat, hoping his voice doesn't betray the fake indifference he's trying desperately to convey, "Not since he left."
Which was over nine months ago, someone says inside his head, and annoyingly, it sounds a little like Alfred.
"Has he spoken to you?" Bruce asks curiously when Clark's expression turns from worried to guilty.
"Oh, yeah, yeah he did." Clark laughs nervously, rubbing the back of his neck, "He sent a transmission last night."
Bruce should probably be mad, or jealous, or something — but all he feels is relief. Somewhere in the world, wherever that is, his son is alright and calling home. He's not calling Bruce, which is fine, it's to be expected from the way they left things before Dick packed up and left. But he's calling Clark, who is some ways, carries parts of Bruce with him everywhere he goes. Dick's alive, and he's —
Bruce bites the inside of his cheek, suddenly feeling an uncomfortable weight in his chest, "Is he safe?"
Clark smiles with something, but it's not pity, because Clark knows better than to insult Bruce like that, "Yes. He's doing well. You'd be proud of the things he's accomplished on his own."
And well, what more does Bruce need? So he nods, turning his back to Clark and waving him off, "Alright. Go on then, get changed. We've got volunteering to do."
He hears Clark hesitate, and for a moment Bruce is worried he'll try and do something ridiculous like hug him, but in the end Clark shuffles off to change into his training suit. Bruce lets out a harsh exhale when left alone after that huge weight descends on him once more.
He drops himself onto the bench in front of the lockers, taking a moment to wake up and push away the nagging sensation of loss before he's dragged into the responsibility of other little children weighing him down. He already has his own kids to be paranoid and worried about, and now, he's going to temporarily have some more. Fighting fifty foot aliens in the middle of the ocean would be less agonisingly daunting.
The Academy does this often, inviting children from orphanages and foster homes, of which exist far and few between, to tour the buildings and get a taste for the training in the Jaeger Academy. Bruce thinks there's some sort of implicit militaristic indoctrination going on, but the children always leave the academy with bright smiles and a goody-bag, so long as they're enjoying themselves, Bruce supposes he shouldn't read too into these things.
"I can't hear you changing!" Clark suddenly shouts when he begins to spiral about his moral responsibility to the hypothetical children in his head, all the way from the other side of the room. Bruce rolls his eyes, standing up with a huff. The man's senses, or perhaps his instinct, has always been unnervingly keen.
"Your super-hearing is still creepy, Clark," he mumbles, reaching to open his locker and change into his own training clothes —
Only to discover that his locker has been broken into. His day is going absolutely terrific.
"Oh," Bruce mumbles a little louder, running a hand across the security panel that someone has, rather messily, demolished in order to disarm the lock, "Well."
Broken into would be an understatement, perhaps. On closer inspection, it looks as though someone had rather vigorously smashed against the lock panel with something dull and heavy, before pulling at the random wires and metal plates that sprung free to further fry it's integrity. It doesn't look premeditated, or planned, and whoever had done it certainly didn't care to hide their handy work.
The corner of Bruce's mouth twitches despite himself, and he blames it on his lack of sleep. He wonders who his locker had offended this much to warrant such a brutal deconstruction.
Opening the locker (that's practically hanging off its hinges) to look around inside and do a mental inventory check, Bruce scoffs, bemused at the sight, "Huh."
"What?" Clark calls, appearing behind him in his ridiculous bright blue and red training suit.
Shrugging, Bruce moves the messy papers and folders that have been scattered around the locker to grab his all-black training suit, "Someone broke into my locker."
"What?" Clark repeats in far too much indignation, practically shoving Bruce out of the way to take a look inside, "How did they do that? What did they take?"
Bruce rolls his eyes, moving aside so he can take off his sweatshirt to put on his black compression shirt along with the rest of his training suit, "My gloves. I have extras in my room, so stop panicking."
"Bruce! This is a state of the art electronic lock and someone has just robbed you and —"
"Can you move? You're standing on my socks."
Clark glares down at Bruce's gloves — his extra pair that they just picked up from his room on the way back to the training centre — like they had personally offended the Kent family honour, "I can't believe someone stole your gloves. The ones Lucius made you, with the cool magnetic finger grips!"
"You're far too upset, they're just gloves," Bruce tells him, walking a little slowly when they reach the academic classrooms, "I needed to replace them anyway."
The building they're in is crawling with young people, with their heads buried in hologram textbooks and tablets, occasionally bulldozing through the pair in their rush to class. Almost all of them are fresh out of the academy, retaking recruits or Cadets eager to get some more training in before their mandated field times. It's also, coincidentally, where the academic school is. After all, even during an alien apocalypse, learning how to correctly use metaphors is an important skill to utilise, apparently (as Alfred said so at least).
"How are you not even a little bit worried? Your gloves!" Clark grumbles.
Truthfully, Bruce is a little concerned. Not that someone's stolen his gloves specifically, but because someone had quite literally broken into the electronic lock to get them. Surely if someone would go through such drastic lengths, they'd break into somewhere with more equipment to steal? Or at least, steal something of value.
The changing room lockers don't have anything important in them. Just some work out clothes, his training suit and stray papers from the infirmary or paperwork Diana had given him to sign and promptly forgot to collect later. If anything, his training suit would be the most special thing in there, one of a kind tailored to fit Bruce Wayne and made of ridiculously expensive material.
Bruce is (somewhat) confident enough in his mandated psychological evaluation to admit that he is usually the most paranoid person in any room he enters, but something about this entire situation is just a little too ridiculous for him to truly care. Other than the lock and the door, nothing else had been damaged or stolen, no foul or sinister plots at play. Just an unbelievably specific robbery.
A part of him thinks Dick would have found it absolutely hilarious.
Plus, his gloves are cool (as Tim would've put it). Custom made, courtesy of Lucius Fox and his never ending inventions for the PPDC. They're made of those special materials that stretch to any size, so virtually anyone can wear them and they'll fit perfectly, and return to their original small design when taken off. Tim loves them because they're warm, and Dick had said they made him look like a secret agent.
Bruce simply liked the pressure against his fingers and palm, constant and there. It's easy to get lost in your head when you train or Drift, with everything so close but so far and out of reach — and so the gloves play the role of a tether. A small, inconspicuous anchor.
Regardless, it doesn't matter. If Bruce really wanted to, he could quickly go to the security rooms and ask to see the camera footage of everyone who entered and left the changing rooms that morning. His gloves aren't exactly inconspicuous.
But right now, he's standing outside of the classrooms for the children of the people who work at or attend the Academy, peering inside. This room, with a large yellow duck plastered on the door (which is always a sight to see in a place that fights aliens), happens to be Tim's class for the year that they're stationed here.
Tim is sitting in his usual spot on the carpet, a yellow pillow in his lap as the teacher reads a colourful storybook to them, dark eyes impossibly wide and focused on the strange animals on the paper. Bruce huffs fondly.
He'd started fostering Tim officially about a year ago now, after his parents had been involved in a devastating Kaiju attack on one of the more populated cities. Bruce and Janet Drake had studied at the academy together, and were compatible enough during their training that maybe they'd have become Drift partners if she hadn't met Jack and he hadn't met Clark.
It seemed natural, to take in Tim when his mother passed and his father made bedridden. Jack Drake is nothing if not stubborn, more than happy to make everyone aware of it, as his heart continues to beat strong and steady. But he's still not woken up from his medically induced coma. Tim visits him almost every day, Bruce with him more often than not.
They weren't strangers before he took him in, with Bruce trusted to watch Tim whenever his parents had unavoidable missions or meetings (after all, he was the only active Pilot to have raised a child, although Dick had come to Bruce when he was much older than Tim). There wasn't anyone at the Academy who was quite as busy as Janet Drake and her husband, unfortunately.
Bruce felt he owed it to them, to Janet, and most importantly, to Tim, to make sure he wasn't left alone.
(Not to mention, that Bruce had a bad habit of taking in children who were left behind. He's fairly sure he still does.)
Clark rests a hand against Bruce's back, "Come on, we've got to get to the training rooms! The kids are waiting!"
"Can I not take a moment to see my kid, Kent?" Bruce asks in annoyance, and to anyone else it might have sounded serious — but he and Clark, effectively, share a brain. The humour is there, hidden beneath a rough and colder exterior.
Clark rolls his eyes and pokes Bruce in between the ribs in retaliation, "You literally just dropped him off at school this morning! It's not even lunchtime!"
Tim chooses this moment to casually look over to the window, only to double take at the sight of Bruce standing there with Clark hovering anxiously like a shadow behind him. The six year old smiles in pleasant surpise, all toothy and bright, waving shyly so he doesn't disturb the rest of the class' reading time.
Bruce's smile is small and personal when he gives Tim a silly thumbs up. Clark does the same despite himself.
"Is Tim excited for his birthday party?" Clark asks a few minutes later as they walk out of the classroom block and towards the training rooms, passers by giving him bright smiles and Bruce less bright but equally as polite smiles. He nods in reply at every single person.
Bruce fiddles with the wrist of his gloves, tightening them more than is probably necessary, "Yes. Though, I think it's mostly because he's one year closer to being allowed into the lab building."
Clark laughs warmly at that, "Also, are you sure about that list of presents you gave me? While I don't doubt that Tim can read a children's guide to astrophysics — wouldn't a seven year old like something else? Like a pony?"
For a moment, Bruce feels horror run through his blood when he tries to imagine a comically large pony living with them in his quarters, only for it to accidentally trample his tiny son when playing a dangerous game of catch, "Clark, while I don't doubt your capabilities to somehow sneak a horse into here, I would really appreciate it if you didn't."
"Not a horse, Bruce," Clark winks mischievously, scanning his key card against the smooth metal plate beside the training doors, walking into the brightly lit room first, "A pony."
He's probably joking, Bruce tells himself with a sigh that suggests Clark isn't joking at all, and maybe Bruce should find a way to turn their extra bedroom into a horse stable. Clark's already striding into the room, large shoulders and tanned face practically glowing at the dozen or so children sitting in a circle in the middle of the training mats.
Bruce reserves to walk a little slower, sneaking behind the literal sunbeams coming out of Clark's cheekbones and opting to stand behind the gaggle of children to watch Clark's introduction himself, amused at the sight. Clark has always been good with entertaining kids, Bruce's own included.
"Hello everyone!" The man starts with an abundance of energy, "I'm Ranger Kent! But for today, you can call me Clark."
A childish mumble of 'Hello Ranger Kent' and the odd 'Hi Clark''s ripple through the group of children, and really, it's adorable. The kids look wide-eyed and nervous, but even Bruce can see the badly hidden excitement underneath their skin, bubbling in anticipation.
He thinks back to his first time in the training rooms, back when the world was decidedly more at risk of ending. The threat of extraterrestrial aliens and corrupted human cooperations was far more present, and while the threat is no less ominous — Bruce marvels at the looks of unadulterated childish wonder on all the children's faces. While his training had mostly been harsh, fast under time pressure before it became a fight for life, these kids will grow up slower.
He thinks of Tim, who's probably taking his afternoon break at school now that reading time is over, eager to grow up and join the fight against the Kaiju by building flying robot dogs who can vaporise things with their eyes (or whatever it was Tim's currently been doodling to stick on their fridge). But right now, he's still in school, learning how to read complex sentences, and Bruce is grateful the world's come far enough for his children to be happy.
He only wishes that Dick had grown up a little slower.
Bruce shakes his head, no point in thinking about that right now.
Instead, Bruce gently looks over the group of children, mentally counting the tufts of messy hair and tiny heads in case that information becomes pertinent for an escape route (you can never be too prepared for that). They're all too busy gazing up at Clark like he's got all the answers in the world, perfect and guiding, which would be funny if Bruce didn't know that Clark has a habit of tripping over himself when distracted.
Clark is still talking about something that Bruce had tuned out, not because he doesn't care, but because he trusts Clark will explain everything to the utmost detail. The children nod along absently when he asks a rhetorical question about health and safety or tells them something with an important sort of tone; but then Bruce catches him.
It's a little boy. He's the smallest kid here, one row from the back, but something about his rigid posture suggests that he's not the youngest. His shoulders are narrowed and hunched, and while the children are all pressed next to each other, he's sitting as far away from the people beside him as he can. His hair is curly, little twirls and twists all over his head.
Although he seems to not want to draw needless attention to himself, Bruce's mouth twitches at the bright red hoodie he's wearing.
But more interestingly, the kid keeps turning to look behind him at Bruce. It's not an obvious gesture, and Bruce is probably not supposed to notice him, but the boy's eyes are narrowed and his body is restless as he turns ever so slightly to glare at Bruce inbetween Clark's introduction.
Bruce realises that he's probably looking very suspicious, wearing an all-black training outfit and standing ominously behind a group of children. All the Ranger's have their own specific designs, mostly for marketing sake, but it does allow a bit of freedom and personality in their routine of misery. Against Clark's unavoidable blue and red suit, Bruce's is far more indimdiating in comparison. No wonder the boy looks uncomfortable.
Diana has also told Bruce, on more than one occasion, that he has a 'staring problem' — whatever that means.
He shuffles to the left, where Hal, a Pilot trainer and Ranger, is holding a tablet and tapping away at something, dressed in his teams signature bright green training suit. He wonders if Clark signed Hal up for volunteering too, given the man's dark circles and gloomy demeanour. Bruce smirks at the thought, clears his throat quietly to get the man's attention in order to tease him about it.
He'd meant to only call Hal to see what it is he's so focused on and hopefully make the kid less nervous, but he ends up with a dozen tiny bright faces contorting themselves around to stare at him. Bruce blinks, suddenly very uncomfortable with the attention, and for some reason, he immediately looks at the red hoodie boy.
He's scowling at Bruce, somehow staring at him with even more dubitations. Bruce has no idea what he's done to upset the boy.
"Oh!" Clark jumps in, sounding amused at Bruce's pleading glare, "Almost forgot — this is Ranger Wayne! He will also be conducting this training session with me!"
Bruce sees the exact moment all the children realise who he is, the famed Ranger Wayne that the PPDC love to make sound much more heroic than he actually is. Bruce had heard the ridiculous rumours about his fights against the Kaiju, the overdramatised missions with Clark, and the very publicised news of him piloting the Striker Eureka with Dick for the first time in years since it was decommissioned.
Though, it had been a long time since Bruce and Dick did anything together, let alone pilote the powerful Jaeger. Striker Eureka stays dormant and unused, and will remain that way, probably forever.
"Can everyone say 'Hello Ranger Wayne!'" Clark asks with a cheery voice, and Bruce wonders if he could grab Hal's tablet and throw it at Clark's head before anyone can try to stop him.
Bruce clears his throat when the children finish their chorus greeting, ignoring Clark and Hal's matching grins and the children's awestruck eyes. "Call me Bruce," He instructs the crowd quietly.
Hal snorts at his much less joyful greeting, while the children's wide eyes grow tenfold, and Bruce wants to squint at the bright light emitting from all of them.
Well, from all of them except the boy in the red hoodie. If anything, he looks more distrustful of Bruce than he did before his introduction.
Clark rolls his eyes fondly, before garnering the attention of the children once more, "Alright — now let me explain what activities we'll be doing today!"
Bruce lets out a breath of relief now that he's no longer under the scrutiny of a dozen tiny people, and Hal knocks his shoulder against Bruce's lightly, raising a brow, "You know, for someone who has two kids, you look terrified right now."
He's whispering so that Clark can clearly explain whatever it is they'll be doing today, so Bruce grunts back instead of giving an actual answer, far more content with surveying the room instead of being the centre of attention. It's short lived however, since Clark is apparently done with his safety talk and explanation, and waves his arm for Bruce to come stand next to him.
"Ranger Wayne and I will give you a demonstration, and then we can have some volunteers try it out!" He says.
Bruce blinks, and as he walks over, the children all scramble to their feet, watching him move with eerily unsettling expectancy.
Was he supposed to do some sort of trick while walking over? A backflip (Dick probably would've done a backflip)? But Bruce is getting old, and his back vehemently protests to the thought of doing a needless backflip just to appease the crowd of children. So instead, he awkwardly shuffles across the room, back straight.
"If you follow Pilot Hal," Clark points to Hal at the back of the room, who grins charmingly and waves at everyone, "He'll lead you to the Combat Room!"
Bruce's eyes widen as the children hurry to follow Hal, leaning into Clark's space to whisper a harsh, "We're going to spar with them?"
Clark blinks at Bruce in surpise, "Were you not paying attention to my speech at all? Bruce!"
"I was!" He was not, "But — is it a good idea, to teach them how to spar?" He can only imagine the strongly worded transmissions they'll receive from the caretakers about the children attacking each other following this visit.
Clark nods in agreement, but shrugs in finality, "The orphanage they're from is funded by the PPDC, so they're all junior cadets and self defence is on their curriculum. If they do well, we'll end up training some of them soon anyway. They're used to it, and will probably enjoy this activity better than watching a bunch of people build robots behind some glass."
Bruce frowns, "What's wrong with the robots?"
"Nothing," Clark sighs in amusement, pushing Bruce towards the Combat Room as well, "But not every kid is a nerd like yours."
Bruce huffs. Tim was not a nerd, he simply enjoyed robotic science.
"The point of the Combat Room isn't just to train and spar with other cadets," Clark tells the group of children standing on the side of the room, "It is also to test how compatible you are with the people you're training with. This is what helps people find their Drift partners. Any questions?"
Bruce watches in amusement as a flurry of tiny hands shoot up, and he absently twirls the baton in his grasp.
Clark points to a girl with bright red hair, and she takes a deep breath in before confidently asking her question, "How do you know if you're compatible with someone?"
"Well," Clark smiles, nodding to Hal once again, who Bruce has no doubt is positively beaming from all the attention, "Hal has a cool tablet that can calculate your compatibility from the technology in the room, though it's purely based on the physical aspect of it, so it's not always accurate. It's just an estimation, that you can use to test more seriously when you're looking for a Drift partner."
The kids look rightfully amazed, but Bruce feels something nagging at him. Clark isn't wrong, technically.
"It's a feeling." Bruce confesses, and immediately regrets it when a dozen curious eyes peer into his very soul.
He grips the baton tightly in his hands, the gloves making a tough leathery sort of noise that echoes in his ears. Bruce looks over to Clark for some guidance, and what he gets is Clark looking ridiculously proud of him for speaking unprompted, nodding encouragingly. While he had given the textbook answer that was most easily understandable for people who'd never piloted a Jaeger, Bruce doesn't doubt that Clark is more inclined to agree with Bruce's answer instead.
Bruce swallows thickly, "When you're sparring, or talking, you can — feel it. That you can trust the person in front of you, and that they trust you too, without ever having spoken to them before."
Bruce thinks about Dick Grayson, and how easy it had been to find a son in the boy. How easy Dick had given him the honour of being a father, after years of uncertainty.
And how easy it had been to lose all of that.
Faintly, Bruce is aware he's perhaps looking a little too emotional, from Hal's rare soft gaze. Bruce doesn't risk looking at Clark, since he'll know exactly what's wrong. After all, Bruce and Clark weren't Drift partners simply because they tolerated each other.
"You'll know when it happens," Bruce finishes, clearing his throat and walking into the center of the mat, pretending to fiddle with his gloves and the baton instead of the hammering in his chest, "You'll know."
With his back turned, he misses the curious look from a boy in a red hoodie.
Bruce and Clark's sparring is rather anticlimactic, all things considered.
They're not in their teens anymore, where sparring is a fight of pride and a mess of adrenaline, eager to prove and more importantly, win. Bruce and Clark had long passed that, and somewhere in between years of war and grief, found it easier to fight for something else than to prove childish honour.
That being said, Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent are impossibly competitive when it comes to each other — and they'll remain that way till their graves, no doubt.
"4-3," Bruce grunts in amusement, his baton pressed against Clark's neck, breathing heavily, "I win."
The children are silent for a moment, and then, all at once, cheer loudly. Bruce had been conscious about them the entire time, not doing anything too dangerous that might inspire a child to try and poke out someone's eye. Hey guys, let's copy Ranger Wayne and try to break our necks! Bruce really didn't need that on his conscience.
Clark seems to have thought a similar thing, since his moves were of equal simplicity. Nothing too flashy or technical. Just a simple, fun sparring match.
That Bruce had won. Not that it was important or anything.
"I let you win," Clark replies with mirth when Bruce can't help but smirk at the cheering from his adoring fans. The man knocks aside the training weapon and jumps to his feet, pretending to stagger and fall against Bruce's side with a huff, "Well kids, there you have it. Anyone want to have a go going against me?"
"Clark's an easy opponent," Bruce teases, still high on the warmth of the friendly match and his victory, the words coming to him easily, "Don't hurt him too much."
The kids giggle while Clark feigns offence, jokingly shoving Bruce out of the sparring box and onto the side with Hal. Bruce makes a whole show of tripping over to the trainer, like Clark had used any force to truly push him. Hal watches them with a knowing smirk, turning the tablet around.
[ 89% COMPATIBILITY ]
Bruce raises his brows, coming to stand next to Hal, "Not even ninety? Maybe I need a new partner."
"Don't let him hear you say that, you'll make him cry." Hal teases, starting the simulator again when the red headed girl from earlier joins Clark on the mat, practically buzzing with excitement as she picks out the same long baton Bruce had used. She'd volunteered to go first it seems, and Bruce commends her bravery.
Once Hal gives them a thumbs up, the two are off, and Bruce is not afraid to admit that he is very surprised. The girl is hardly skilled enough to win a real fight, obviously, but there's practice in the way she jumps from side to side, confidently lunging towards Clark even if he moves before she can tap him with the baton. But more importantly, she looks like she's having fun.
The children cheer even louder now that one of their own is in the ring, and the energy is infectious. Hal snorts when Clark stumbles and jumps away as the girl swipes at his feet, almost falling backwards, and Bruce can't stop the small smile that spreads on his face. He looks away from the spar, which is going much better than expected, and watches the children jump and cheer for their friend.
It's as he does so, that Bruce sees them:
It's the boy from earlier, scrawny and harbouring some sort of personal vendetta against Bruce. He's loosened up a bit now, much to Bruce's relief, engrossed in the spar before him, grinning from ear to ear as the girl tries to land a hit on Clark's knees. Miraculously, or luckily, the girl manages to tap Clark on his shoulder as he ducks away, and the children raise their hands to cheer.
0-1
Bruce blinks.
His gloves.
His stolen gloves.
On the hands of the boy wearing the red hoodie.
"Oh," Bruce says in confusion, and once amusement settles in his chest instead, he feels the corners of his mouth twitch at how ridiculous this is. What a comical coincidence and stupid bravery. Mostly stupid, though.
Hal nods his head over to him, eyes still on the spar and the tablet in his hands, "What was that?"
"We really need to upgrade our security." Bruce mumbles offhandedly, no doubt only making Hal even more confused. If Bruce wasn't so paranoid on catching everyone's attention again, he's sure he'd be laughing, because somehow, a ten year old kid has snuck into the most well guarded and indestructible place in the entire world and stolen Bruce Wayne's gloves.
"Dude, are you smiling?" Hal asks in what sounds like horror, but before Bruce can elbow him in the ribs, the children erupt into cheers once more.
"4-1," Clark grins, genuinely proud as he helps the girl to her feet and then raises a hand to high five, "I hope to see you at the academy one day, Cadet."
The girl beams, jumping to high five Clark before rushing back to the group, smiling widely.
Bruce is still shocked by the sudden revelation at finding his glove thief, that he's staring intensely at a baton-shaped dent on the wall when Hal whistles, tapping away at the tablet, "12%? Not bad for the first time."
"Bruce!" Clark calls while waving him over, snapping him out of his stunned stupor, "Time for you to get your ass kicked!"
The children giggle, either at the disappointed huff from Bruce as he trudges back over into the ring, or from Clark saying the word ass and making it sound much less rude than it actually is. But evidently, the children are not so eager to jump into the ring with Bruce as the opponent in comparison to Clark 'camp councillor' demeanour, looking anxiously between one another.
The boy with his gloves is trying very hard to blend into the back of group, which is very hard to do given he's pulled his bright red hood over his curly black hair. Bruce feels like smiling again, hopelessly amused. It reminds him of when Tim wants to play hide and seek, under the impression that if he shuts his eyes and can't see Bruce, Bruce can't see him either.
He wonders for a moment, tapping the end of the baton.
"How about you, with the black gloves," Bruce calls out gently before he can think better of it, watching as the boy practically jumps out of skin, "Want to give it a go?"
The rest of the children frown at the strange calling, looking around at each other's hands in question. Clark does the same, while Hal just looks at Bruce with raised brows.
"Oh," Clark says when he finally catches sight of the boy, and the gloves on his hands, "Oh!"
Bruce ignores him entirely, even when Clark's face goes through about twelve different emotions at once, ultimately ending at absolute confusion. Instead, Bruce watches the boy patiently.
When it seems as though the boy really doesn't want to participate, Bruce is almost ready to move on and ask someone else, feeling wrong-footed by calling him out specifically. Maybe he shouldn't have done that, even if being caught is a natural consequence of sloppy thievery. The boy seemed uncomfortable from the very beginning and —
"Fine."
Bruce blinks, watching silently as the boy weaves through the group to stand in front of Bruce. He glares through the shadow of his red hood, like it's a challenge.
Bruce raises a brow, "Are you sure?"
The boy hesitates for a moment, and Bruce watches as he grips his hands, the leather of his gloves rubbing against each other in his palm. The sound, as always, echoes in Bruce's ears. He pulls down his hood carefully, and Bruce is suddenly hit with an overwhelming sensation of nostalgia as he stares back into impossibly blue eyes, framed by thick dark lashes.
The boy smiles, giddy with childish excitement and foolish bravery, "Let's do this."
Mostly foolish, though.