Archive of Our Own

The stratosphere was usually where he went to think.

It was the only place on Earth where the noise of six billion people faded into a dull, manageable hum—a white noise that sounded like the ocean inside a seashell. But today, even the edge of space felt suffocating.

Clark Kent floated in the thin, freezing air, the curvature of the Earth glowing a soft blue beneath him. The sun was rising over the Atlantic, casting long, golden fingers of light across the cloud layer, but Clark felt none of its warmth. He just felt cold. A bone-deep, marrow-seeping cold that had settled into his chest fourteen days ago and hadn't left since.

It had been two weeks.

Two weeks since the funeral. Two weeks since he had stood in the pouring rain at the Gotham cemetery, dressed in a cheap suit and thick glasses, clutching a notepad he hadn't written a single word in. He had stood there as a reporter for the Daily Planet, pretending he was just there to cover the tragic death of Bruce Wayne’s ward. He had to watch from the back row as his husband and his eldest son buried their youngest child.

He hadn't been allowed to hold Bruce’s hand. He hadn't been allowed to wipe the rain mixed with tears from Dick’s face. He hadn't been allowed to throw a handful of dirt onto the coffin and whisper, “Goodbye, Jay-lad.”

He was Superman. He was Clark Kent. But he wasn't "Family." Not publicly.

Clark closed his eyes, drifting on a thermal current, and let the memory he had been trying to suppress claw its way back to the surface. It was sharper than the wind cutting across his face.

New York. The United Nations Plaza.

The smell of ozone and wet concrete. The sheer, blinding rage radiating off Batman like heat off a pavement. Clark remembered landing, his cape snapping in the wind, his boots hitting the ground with a heavy thud that was meant to be authoritative. He remembered the desperate, pleading look in his own eyes as he blocked Bruce’s path to the Joker.

“You can’t do this, Bruce,” he had said. “The State Department… he has immunity. If you kill him now, on international soil, with the cameras rolling…”

He hadn't finished the sentence. He hadn't needed to. Batman didn't care about politics. He didn't care about the United Nations or the Iranian ambassadorship the Joker had sickeningly twisted into a shield. He only cared about the blood on the crowbar.

Clark looked down at his hand—the left one. Currently, it was covered by the blue material of his suit, glove-less and indestructible. But he could still feel the phantom sensation of the impact.

Bruce had punched him.

It hadn't been a tactical strike. It hadn't been a martial arts move designed to disable. It was a sloppy, desperate, grief-stricken haymaker thrown by a man who had lost everything. Batman’s reinforced knuckle had connected with Superman’s jaw with a sickening crack.

Clark hadn't moved. He hadn't even blinked. He was the Man of Steel; he couldn't be hurt by a human punch. But he remembered the sound of Bruce’s hand breaking. He remembered the way Bruce had cradled the injured limb against his chest, not making a sound, his cowl hiding eyes that Clark knew were screaming.

That punch hurt more than Kryptonite. It was the physical manifestation of their severance.

“Get out of my way,” Bruce had growled, his voice a ruined wreck of gravel and blood.

And Clark… Clark had stood his ground. He had done the "right" thing. He had upheld the law. He had let the Joker get into that helicopter. He had watched the helicopter crash into the sea, watched the flames get swallowed by the Atlantic, and he had dived in to save Batman, dragging him from the wreckage while the Joker’s body vanished into the dark currents, denied the finality of a corpse.

I saved the Batman, Clark thought bitterly, opening his eyes to stare at the void of space. But I killed Bruce Wayne.

He shifted his weight in the air, turning his head specifically toward the Eastern Seaboard. Toward the dark, gothic sprawl of architecture that was Gotham City.

He shouldn't listen. Bruce had made it clear—without saying a word—that he wanted space. The Manor was on lockdown. The Cave was silent. But Clark couldn't stop himself. He was also a father who had lost a child, and his remaining family was hurting, and he was hovering ten thousand feet in the air because he didn't know how to bridge the gap between "I'm sorry" and "I couldn't save him."

He focused. He pushed past the noise of Metropolis, past the traffic of Blüdhaven, and narrowed his hearing down to a single frequency: the heartbeat of Wayne Manor.

It was a grim symphony.

First, he found the bass line. Thump… thump… thump.

Bruce.

He was in the study. Clark could tell by the acoustics; the heartbeat was echoing slightly off the high bookshelves and the mahogany desk. It was a slow, heavy rhythm. Too slow. It was the heartbeat of a man who was simply existing, forcing the blood to pump through his veins out of sheer stubbornness rather than a desire to live. He wasn't moving. He was likely sitting in that high-backed leather chair, staring at the empty fireplace. He wasn't drinking—Alfred wouldn't allow it, and Bruce wouldn't numb the pain he felt he deserved—but he wasn't sleeping either.

Then, the frantic, erratic tenor.

Thump-thump-thump-hiccup-thump.

Dick.

Clark’s heart clenched. Dick was in his old room. The rhythm was fast, wet, and heavy. He was crying. Not the loud, wailing sobs of a child, but the suppressed, gasping shudders of a young man trying to be strong. Clark could hear the rustle of fabric—Dick was likely curling into a ball on top of his covers, clutching something. Maybe an old Robin tunic. Maybe a picture.

Clark’s hand twitched. He wanted to fly down there. He wanted to crash through the window, wrap Dick in his cape, and hold him until the shaking stopped. He wanted to be Papa.

But he couldn't. Because Papa was the reason the Joker had got on that helicopter. Papa was the one who stopped Dad from getting justice.

And then… there was the third sound.

It was a new sound. A hesitant, light percussion that hadn't been there a month ago.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

The new boy. Tim Drake.

Clark didn't know him well yet. He knew the basics—Jack and Janet Drake’s son, the neighbor from next door. He had been in the Manor for two days now. He had forced his way in, not with malice, but with a desperate, wide-eyed determination to fix a broken Batman.

Clark focused on that small heart. It was currently in the hallway outside the study. It would speed up, as if the boy was about to knock on the door, and then it would falter and slow down as he pulled his hand back. He was pacing. Trying to find the courage to enter the lion's den.

He’s trying, Clark thought, a wave of affection mixing with his grief. He’s trying to do what I can't.

He looked down at his left hand again. He wasn't wearing his ring. As Superman, he couldn't. It would raise too many questions. But under the red belt, inside a small, lead-lined compartment in his belt, the simple gold band sat heavy against his hip.

Bruce wore his on a chain around his neck, hidden beneath the cowl, resting against his sternum. Clark wondered if Bruce was holding it right now. Or if he had taken it off. The thought that Bruce might have removed the ring—that he might have severed that last tie—made Clark’s breath hitch in the thin air.

“Jason,” Clark whispered into the silence of the upper atmosphere.

The wind took the name and scattered it.

He remembered Jason’s laugh. He remembered the way Jason would roll his eyes when Clark went into "reporter mode," only to secretly read every article Clark wrote. He remembered Jason calling him "C" when he was trying to be cool, and "Papa" when he was tired or hurt.

Then he remembered the smell of the smoke in Ethiopia.

Clark squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn't stay here. The silence was too loud, and the noise from the Manor was tearing him apart. He needed to be closer. He needed to see, even if he couldn't be seen.

He tilted his body downward, gravity taking hold as he began the descent toward the dark, rain-slicked streets of New Jersey. He wouldn't go to the Manor. He wasn't welcome there yet. But there was one place he could go. One place where he could apologize to the son he had failed.

Superman plummeted toward the earth, aiming not for the city of the living, but for the city of the dead.

Wayne Manor was not haunted by ghosts. It was haunted by the living.

Dick sat at the long mahogany dining table, staring into the dark depths of a coffee mug that had gone cold an hour ago. The silence of the house was heavy, a physical weight that pressed against his eardrums. It wasn't the peaceful quiet of a library; it was the suffocating stillness of a tomb.

He rubbed his eyes, the heels of his hands digging into the sockets until he saw stars. He was exhausted. In the last two weeks, he had commuted between Blüdhaven and Gotham so many times that the route was burned into his retinas. The Titans needed Nightwing—needed their leader to be strong and focused—but right now, Nightwing felt like he was made of glass, ready to shatter at the slightest frequency.

He looked up as the heavy oak door creaked open.

Bruce entered.

He didn't look like Batman. He didn't look like the billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. He looked… eroded. He was wearing the same charcoal robe he had worn yesterday, the belt tied loosely around a waist that seemed thinner than it had been a month ago. His face was a landscape of gray stubble and shadows, his eyes sunken so deep that the blue was almost entirely swallowed by the black circles beneath them.

"Bruce," Dick said softly. It was an offering. A plea for acknowledgment.

Bruce didn't answer. He moved like a sleepwalker to the sideboard, poured himself a glass of water, and stared at the wall. His hand trembled—just a fraction of a millimeter—before he steadied it against the wood. He drank the water in three gulps, set the glass down with a soft clink, and turned to leave.

“Dad”

He didn't look at Dick. If he looked at Dick, he would have to see the grief reflected back at him. He would have to see the brother who had lost a brother.

Dick watched him go, the urge to scream rising in his throat and dying there, choked by the knowledge that screaming wouldn't bring Jason back. It wouldn't fix the broken hand Bruce was nursing against his chest.

As Bruce’s footsteps faded up the stairs, a small movement caught Dick’s peripheral vision.

He turned his head.

Standing in the doorway, half-hidden by the frame, was a small boy with messy black hair and eyes that were far too sharp for a thirteen-year-old. Tim Drake.

Tim had been here for two days. He wasn't supposed to be here—technically, he should be next door at his parents' house—but he had simply refused to leave. He had shown up on the doorstep with a backpack and a stubborn set to his jaw, declaring that Batman needed a Robin, and until he got one, he needed a keeper.

Dick hadn't had the energy to argue. Besides, the kid was useful. He made sure Bruce ate. He made sure the Batcomputer didn't overheat. He was a tiny, persistent anchor in the storm.

"He looks worse," Tim said quietly, stepping fully into the room. He was wearing one of Dick’s old hoodies; it swallowed him whole, the sleeves bunching at his wrists just like it had once on Jason.

"He's grieving, Tim," Dick murmured, turning back to his cold coffee. "It takes time."

Tim pulled out a chair opposite Dick and climbed onto it, crossing his legs. He looked at the empty spot at the head of the table where Bruce usually sat, and then to the spot on the right where Jason used to sit. Finally, his gaze landed on the empty chair to Bruce’s left.

The chair that belonged to Clark.

Tim frowned, a little wrinkle appearing between his eyebrows. He fidgeted with the sleeve of the hoodie. "Where's Papa?"

Dick flinched. The word hung in the air, innocent and devastating.

Tim had taken to calling Clark "Papa" with a terrifying efficiency. Dick had drilled it into him the moment Tim had deduced their identities—“Clark is Papa, and Bruce is Dad or B. Get it right, or don’t talk to them.” It was a survival tactic, it was mean, like he had been to Jason when he first arrived, a way to cement the family unit before the world could tear it apart.

"He's not here, Tim," Dick said, his voice straining.

"I know he's not here," Tim said, rolling his eyes. "I have ears. I haven't heard the whoosh or the landing. I mean, why isn't he here? B is falling apart. Papa fixes things. He’s the sun, right? B needs the sun."

Dick let out a hollow laugh that sounded more like a bark. "It's… complicated."

"Did they get a divorce?" Tim asked bluntly. "Because I read that fifty percent of marriages end in divorce after the loss of a child, but they aren't technically married on paper, so—"

"Tim," Dick interrupted, holding up a hand. "Stop. Breathe."

Tim clamped his mouth shut, but his eyes were demanding answers.

Dick sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair. How did he explain the nuances of diplomatic immunity, a broken hand, and a punch that had shattered more than just bone? How did he explain that Clark blamed himself so deeply for Jason’s death that he couldn't look Bruce in the eye? How did he explain that Bruce was so consumed by rage that seeing Clark might just break him completely?

"Papa is…" Dick searched for the words. He looked out the window at the gray Gotham sky. "Papa is out buying milk."

Tim stared at him. "Milk."

"Yeah," Dick said, his voice thick. "Really, really expensive milk. From a store very far away."

"That's a metaphor," Tim accused. "I heard other dad’s at galas used that metaphor when they disappear. It means he's gone and he doesn't know when he's coming back."

"He's not gone for good," Dick said fiercely, surprising himself with the intensity of his tone. He leaned forward. "Clark loves us. He loves B. But right now… the store is just really far away. And the milk is hard to find. And B… B isn't ready to drink it yet."

Tim absorbed this, his intelligence processing the layers of pain behind the stupid metaphor. He looked down at the table, tracing the grain of the wood with a small finger.

"I saw him, you know," Tim whispered.

Dick froze. "Who?"

"Superman. Papa." Tim looked up, his eyes wide. "Yesterday. I was in the garden. I looked up because the birds stopped singing. He was there. Way up high. Just floating. He was looking down at the house."

Dick felt a lump form in his throat. Of course he was. Clark never really left. He was always hovering, always listening, torturing himself with the sounds of their misery.

"Did he come down?" Dick asked, his voice barely a whisper.

Tim shook his head. "No. He just stayed there for a long time. Then he flew away. He looked… sadder than B."

Dick closed his eyes. The image of Clark, floating in the stratosphere, unable to come home, broke something inside him that he hadn't realized was still intact.

"He'll come back," Dick said, opening his eyes and forcing a smile that didn't reach them. He reached across the table and squeezed Tim’s hand. "He just needs to find the right kind of milk. The kind that fixes broken bones and… and broken hearts."

Tim didn't pull his hand away. He just nodded, looking at the empty chair with a fierce determination.

"Well," Tim said, sliding off the chair. "I'm going to go check on B. If Papa isn't here to do it, someone has to."

Dick watched the small boy march out of the room, his footsteps echoing in the large, empty house. He looked back at his cold coffee, the silence rushing back in to fill the space Tim had left.

Come home, Clark, Dick thought, projecting the thought as loud as he could, hoping that maybe, just maybe, the super-hearing could pick it up. We’re running out of time.

The rain in Gotham didn’t wash things clean; it just made the grime slicker.

It was three in the morning, the dead hour, when the city held its breath between the late-night crimes and the early-morning commutes. The cemetery was a sprawling, wrought-iron-gated city of its own, silent save for the relentless drumming of water against stone.

Clark stood ankle-deep in mud, his boots ruining the hem of his jeans. He wasn’t wearing the cape. He wasn't wearing the shield. He was wearing a soaked flannel shirt that clung to his broad shoulders and a pair of thick-rimmed glasses that were so spotted with rain he had to look over the top of them to see the headstone.

JASON PETER TODD^-wayne

Beloved Son and Brother

1973 – 1988

The earth was still mounded. The grass hadn't grown back yet. It was just a raw, ugly scar in the ground, covered in wilting lilies and rain-sodden teddy bears left by people who didn't even know him.

"Hey, Jay," Clark whispered. His voice cracked, a rough, wet sound that was swallowed instantly by the wind.

He waited for a snarky retort. He waited for a ghost to pop up and make a joke about how Clark looked like a drowned rat, or how ‘Smallville’ shouldn't be out past his bedtime.

Nothing but rain.

Clark sank to his knees. The mud soaked through his jeans instantly, cold and cloying, but he didn't care. He placed a hand on the cold marble of the headstone, his fingers tracing the letters of the name he had helped name.

"I'm sorry," he choked out, the words tearing at his throat. "I am so, so sorry, kiddo."

He bowed his head, the water dripping from his nose and mixing with the tears he could no longer hold back.

"I wasn't fast enough," he said to the dirt. "I can move faster than a speeding bullet, and I… I was too slow. I was too busy being Superman. Too busy worrying about treaties and borders and… and rules."

The memory hit him like a physical blow, doubling him over.

The United Nations. The bright, sterile lights of the assembly hall. The Joker, grinning that rictus grin, draped in the flag of a nation he didn't care about, mocking the very concept of justice.

Clark squeezed his eyes shut, his hand gripping the headstone hard enough to leave a microscopic indentation in the granite.

"I stopped him, Jason," Clark confessed, the guilt finally finding a voice. "Bruce… your dad… he was going to end it. He was going to kill him. And he would have been right."

He remembered the sheer force of Bruce’s rage. It hadn't been the calculated anger of Batman; it had been the primal, animalistic fury of a father whose cub had been butchered. Bruce had charged, ready to tear the Joker apart with his bare hands, consequences be damned.

And Clark had stood in his way.

“Think about what you’re doing!” he had shouted, shielding the monster. “The world is watching!”

"The world is watching," Clark spat the words out now, tasting the bile. "I cared about what the world thought. I cared about the optics. I cared about saving Batman’s soul." He looked up at the grave, his eyes red and pleading. "But I sacrificed his son to do it."

He had saved the symbol, but he had damned the man.

"He hates me," Clark whispered. "And he should. I think… I think I hate me too right now."

He wiped his face with a muddy hand, smearing dirt across his cheek. "I should have let him do it. Or I should have done it myself. I should have thrown that clown into the sun."

But he hadn't. He had played by the book. And because of that, the Joker was gone—lost at sea, probably alive, probably laughing somewhere—while Jason was here. Cold. Alone. Rotting in a box six feet under the mud.

"I promise you," Clark said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous rumble that sounded more like the alien he was than the farm boy he pretended to be. "I promise you, Jason… if he comes back… if he ever touches Dick, or that new boy, or Bruce… I won't be Superman next time. I'll just be your Papa."

The wind howled through the trees, a mournful, shrieking sound that rattled the gates. Clark stayed there, kneeling in the mud, a statue of grief carved out of guilt and rain. He didn't feel the cold. He didn't feel the wet. He only felt the crushing weight of the silence.

He stayed for an hour. Then two. Just breathing. Just keeping vigil over the boy who had deserved better than a hero who followed the rules.

Eventually, the first hint of gray light began to touch the horizon. Clark sighed, a shuddering release of breath. He placed a hand on the mounded earth one last time.

"Rest easy, Jay-lad," he whispered. "I'm listening. I'll always be listening."

He stood up, his knees popping, his clothes heavy with water. He turned to leave, ready to walk back to the city limits before taking flight, ready to return to the empty stratosphere.

He took one step.

Then he stopped.

His head snapped back toward the grave. His ears, tuned to the heartbeat of the world, twitched.

Because beneath the sound of the rain, beneath the wind, beneath the distant rumble of the Gotham subway…

There was a sound that didn't belong in a graveyard.

Clark froze. One boot was lifted, ready to step onto the gravel path, but he couldn't put it down. He stood like a statue in the rain, his head cocked to the side, his breath held in his chest until his lungs burned.

Thump.

There it was again.

Faint. So faint that even a bat’s sonar might have missed it. It was a dull, wet vibration that seemed to travel up through the soles of his boots and rattle his very bones.

"No," Clark whispered, shaking his head violently. "Stop it."

He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing the heels of his hands against his temples. This was it. This was the break. He had finally pushed himself too far. The grief, the lack of sleep, the crushing guilt—his mind had finally snapped. He was hallucinating. He was projecting his own desperate desire for a miracle onto the cold, unyielding laws of biology.

It’s a worm, he told himself rationally. It’s a beetle burrowing through the soil. It’s the ground settling after the rain. It’s a subway train three miles down causing a tremor.

He forced himself to exhale. He forced himself to take that step away.

Thump… thump.

Clark stopped breathing entirely.

That wasn't the rhythmic, mechanical vibration of a train. And it wasn't the soft, fluid movement of an insect. It was a spasm. A jagged, terrified contraction of muscle.

He spun around, his eyes locking onto the muddy mound of Jason’s grave. The rain was pelting it, turning the dirt into a slurry, but Clark looked through it. He engaged his X-ray vision, peeling back the layers of mud, the silk lining of the coffin, the heavy mahogany lid.

The world turned gray and transparent.

And then, he saw it.

Six feet down, inside the satin-lined box, a small, battered chest was heaving.

Clark choked, a sound that was half-sob, half-scream.

Thump… thump… gasp.

It was weak. It was fluttering like a dying bird trapped in a cage. But it was there. And then, a sound that didn't need super-hearing to shatter his heart—the sound of fingernails scratching against wood.

Scritch. Scritch.

"Oh god," Clark gasped, the air leaving him in a rush. "Oh god, Jason."

The paralysis broke.

He didn't think about the suit. He didn't think about the glasses sliding down his nose or the flannel shirt soaking up the freezing rain. He didn't check the perimeter for cameras or witnesses. The concept of "Superman" evaporated instantly. There was no hero here. There was only a father who realized his child had been buried alive.

Clark dropped to his knees in the mud with a force that cracked the ground.

"I'm here!" he shouted at the dirt, his voice raw with panic. "Jason! I'm here! Hold on!"

He plunged his hands into the wet earth. He didn't use super-speed—he couldn't risk creating a shockwave that would collapse the coffin lid onto the boy. He dug with a frantic, terrifying desperation, his fingers hooking into the heavy clay and ripping it away in massive, wet chunks.

Dirt flew over his shoulder. Mud splattered his face, coating his glasses, filling his mouth as he gasped for air, but he didn't stop. He was weeping openly now, terrified tears mixing with the rain.

How long? his mind screamed. How long has he been awake? How much air is left? Is he screaming? Is he calling for Bruce?

"Don't you die on me!" Clark snarled at the ground, tearing through a layer of roots. "Don't you dare die on me twice!"

His fingernails broke. His hands, usually invulnerable, felt clumsy and shaking with adrenaline. He was digging like a dog, like a madman, destroying the pristine manicuring of the cemetery, like a human.

Thump… thump…

The heartbeat was getting faster. Panic. Hyperventilation. Jason was using up the last of his oxygen.

"Jay, breathe slow!" Clark yelled, knowing the boy couldn't hear him, but unable to stop himself. "Papa's coming! Papa's right here!"

He hit wood.

The sound was a dull thud against his palm.

Clark didn't hesitate. He cleared the last foot of earth in a single, sweeping motion, revealing the polished mahogany of the coffin lid. It was scratched. Even from the outside, he could feel the desperation radiating from within.

He hooked his fingers under the lip of the lid. He could have ripped it off like it was paper, but he forced himself to be gentle, to be precise. The air pressure change could burst eardrums. The light could blind.

"Jason," Clark sobbed, his hands shaking as he gripped the wood. "I've got you."

With a groan of protesting metal hinges and cracking wood, Clark Kent tore the door to the underworld open.

The sound of the wood snapping was sickeningly loud, like a gunshot in a library.

Clark didn't rip the lid off; he peeled it back with a trembling, terrifying precision, the mahogany groaning in protest as the screws gave way under his grip. The seal broke, and the smell hit him instantly—not the smell of decay, thank Rao, but the smell of stagnant air, dried blood, and the distinct, acrid scent of ozone and smoke that still clung to the boy's uniform.

Clark looked down.

The lightning flashed overhead, illuminating the inside of the coffin in a stark, strobe-light horror show.

Jason was there. But he wasn't the Jason Clark remembered.

He was a ruin.

The funeral home had done their best, but they hadn’t removed him from his Robin tunic—at Bruce's request, he couldn’t bare to take away what his brave little boy had work so hard for—and the bright colors only made the damage more grotesque. His skin was gray, the color of wet ash. There were dark, mottled bruises along his jawline and neck that makeup couldn't fully hide. His left arm was twisted at an unnatural angle, settled awkwardly against his side.

And he was still. So painfully still.

Then, the chest hitched.

Hhhhuuuugh.

It was a wet, ragged gasp, like a drowning man breaking the surface of a frozen lake. Jason’s back arched off the satin lining, his eyes screwed shut, his mouth opening in a silent scream as the cold, wet air of the cemetery rushed into lungs that had been collapsed for two weeks.

"Jason!" Clark choked out.

He reached in. His hands, usually so steady they could suture a wound at super-speed, were shaking uncontrollably. He slid his arms under the small, broken body—one under the knees, the other supporting the neck and the crushed skull.

He lifted him.

Jason was light. Too light. He felt like a collection of hollow bird bones held together by pain and willpower. As Clark pulled him from the box, Jason’s head lolled back against Clark’s shoulder, and a low, keening whimper escaped his throat.

"I've got you," Clark whispered frantically, pulling the boy against his chest, heedless of the mud transferring from his shirt to the boy's face. "Papa's got you. You're safe. You're out."

The rain was freezing. Jason started to shiver—violent, convulsing tremors that threatened to snap his already damaged bones.

Clark didn't hesitate. He stripped off his heavy flannel overshirt, leaving himself in just a thin undershirt that was instantly soaked. He wrapped the flannel around Jason, swaddling him like an infant, tucking the collar up to protect the boy's face from the downpour. He pulled Jason tight against his own body, using his own invulnerable warmth as a radiator.

"B… B… B…"

The sound was barely audible, a bubbling whisper against Clark’s collarbone. Jason was asking for Bruce.

Clark’s head snapped toward the Gotham skyline. The Manor was five miles away. He could be there in three seconds. He could crash through the window of the study, lay Jason in Bruce’s arms, and watch the light return to his husband's eyes.

But then he looked down at the boy in his arms.

Jason wasn't just injured; he was wrecked. The explosion had done internal damage that Clark couldn't even begin to catalogue without an MRI. The resurrection—or whatever miracle this was—had restarted his heart, but it hadn't fixed the trauma. He was bleeding internally. His breathing was shallow. His heart was stuttering.

If Clark took him to the Manor… if he handed a dying boy to a man who had barely survived burying him once…

If he dies on the table in the Batcave, Clark realized with a jolt of icy terror, it will kill Bruce. It will destroy him in a way the Joker never could.

He couldn't risk it. He couldn't give Bruce hope only to snatch it away ten minutes later. He needed a guarantee. He needed a miracle factory.

"I can't take you home yet, Jay-lad," Clark whispered into the wet, matted hair. "I'm sorry. I have to take you somewhere else first."

He tightened his grip on the bundle.

Clark bent his knees and pushed off the ground.

He didn't launch with a sonic boom—that would shatter Jason’s eardrums. He rose vertically, defying gravity with a gentle, fluid motion, until he was hovering above the treeline. The mud from the grave fell away from his boots.

He turned North.

"Close your eyes," Clark murmured, shielding Jason’s face with his hand to block the wind. "We're going to the Fortress. Grandpa Jor-El will fix this."

He leaned forward and accelerated.

He flew differently than he ever had before. Usually, Superman cut through the air like a knife, ignoring friction. Now, Clark made himself a shield. He hunched his shoulders, curling his body around Jason to create a pocket of still air, taking the brunt of the atmospheric drag on his own back. He managed the G-forces with agonizing care, accelerating slowly, banking gently, treating the boy in his arms not like a soldier, but like the fragile, broken child he was.

Below them, the lights of Gotham faded into the darkness. Clark didn't look back. He just held on to the faint, fluttering heartbeat against his chest and prayed to a Kryptonian god he didn't believe in that he wasn't just transporting a corpse to the Arctic.

The transition from the grime of New Jersey to the pristine silence of the Arctic was jarring.

Clark didn't land; he crashed. Not physically—he would never risk jarring Jason—but atmospherically. He tore through the sound barrier only when he was certain the air pressure wouldn't kill the boy, and he slammed into the Fortress of Solitude’s entry tunnel like a desperate animal seeking a burrow.

The massive crystalline doors sensed his bio-signature and parted with a deep, resonant hum, but they didn't open fast enough for Clark’s panic. He shot through the widening gap, the tips of his boots grazing the ice, carrying a trail of graveyard mud and rainwater into the sanctuary of his ancestors.

Inside, the Fortress was blindingly white. The walls were facets of diamond and ice, reflecting the endless polar day. It was sterile. Perfect. Alien.

And Clark was a mess of Earth.

He dripped dirty water onto the translucent floor. Clumps of clay from Jason’s grave fell from his jeans, leaving a dark, ugly trail that violated the perfection of the crystal palace. He didn't care. He flew straight for the medical bay, his breathing ragged, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.

"Father!" Clark screamed, his voice echoing off the towering spires. "Jor-El! Activate!"

The air shimmered. A column of light coalesced in the center of the room, resolving into the stern, monochrome features of Jor-El. The AI looked impassive, a ghost of a dead world, staring down at the frantic, mud-soaked son of a living one.

"Kal-El," the AI’s voice was calm, a soothing baritone that grated against Clark’s raw nerves. "You are in distress. Your heart rate is elevated. Your cortisol levels are—"

"Save him!" Clark interrupted, dropping to his knees before the central medical dais. He laid the bundle on the smooth, glowing surface. The flannel shirt fell open, revealing the ruin of the Robin uniform and the gray, slack face of Jason Todd. "Father, please. He’s dying. He’s… he was dead. I don't know. Just save him!"

The AI’s eyes—sensors made of hard light—swept over the boy. A grid of red laser light scanned Jason from head to toe, mapping every broken bone, every ruptured organ, every cell that was struggling to remember how to divide.

"Analyzing," Jor-El intoned. "Subject is human. Male. Adolescent. Extensive trauma consistent with high-velocity impact and explosive decompression. Signs of… recent cessation of life functions."

"Can you help him?" Clark begged, his hands hovering over Jason but afraid to touch him, afraid to smear more death onto the boy.

The AI paused. For a terrifying second, the Fortress was silent.

"Genetic scan complete," Jor-El announced. "Subject identified: Jason Peter Todd." The AI turned its gaze to Clark. "Designation: Kal-El’s offspring."

Clark’s head snapped up. Tears welled in his eyes, hot and stinging. "Yes," he choked out. "Yes. He’s my son."

The AI didn't argue biology. It didn't point out the lack of Kryptonian DNA. It simply accepted the designation. To the advanced intellect of Krypton, family was a construct of bond, not just blood.

If Kal-El claimed the boy, the boy was of the House of El.

"Priority Alpha," Jor-El stated, the lights in the room shifting from a calm white to an urgent, pulsating amber. "Prepare the Genesis Chamber. Initiate deep-tissue regeneration. Isolate the neural pathways to prevent shock."

A transparent, crystalline sarcophagus rose from the floor. It looked like a coffin made of diamonds—a cruel visual echo of the box Clark had just ripped Jason out of—but it hummed with life, not death.

"Place him inside, Kal-El," Jor-El instructed. "Quickly."

Clark moved. He scooped Jason up, the flannel falling away to the floor in a sodden heap. He lowered Jason into the matrix. The moment the boy’s back touched the bio-bed, the crystal lid slid shut with a hiss of hermetic seals.

A pale, golden fluid began to fill the chamber.

"The suspension fluid will oxygenate his blood and repair the cellular damage," Jor-El explained, his image flickering as he diverted power to the medical systems. "He will be induced into a delta-wave sleep. He will feel no pain."

Clark watched as the fluid covered Jason’s chest, then his neck, and finally his face. For a moment, panic flared—he’s drowning!—but then the monitors on the side of the pod lit up.

HEART RATE: STABILIZING.

OXYGEN SATURATION: 100%.

CELLULAR REGENERATION: ACTIVE.

Jason floated in the gold liquid, his hair drifting like seaweed, his bruised face peaceful for the first time in weeks. The horrific angles of his broken arm began to shift as the matrix set the bone.

He was safe.

Clark stood there for a long time, watching the numbers climb, watching the gray fade from Jason’s skin. He didn't move until Jor-El spoke again.

"The procedure will take approximately two hours, Kal-El. The child is secure."

Clark let out a breath that felt like it had been held for fourteen days. "Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you."

He stepped back, and his boot squelched.

He looked down. He was standing in a puddle of muddy water. His hands… his hands were caked in it. The dark, loamy soil of the Gotham cemetery was dried under his fingernails, smeared up his forearms, stained into the fabric of his undershirt.

It was the dirt that had covered his son.

A violent shudder went through him. Clark turned away from the pod, stumbling toward a basin of melted glacial water near the entrance. He plunged his hands into the freezing water.

He scrubbed.

He scrubbed until the water turned black. He scrubbed until his skin was red and raw. He scrubbed as if he could wash away the memory of the coffin, the sound of his nails hitting wood, the feeling of the cold, dead weight in his arms.

"I have him," Clark gasped, the water splashing over the sides of the basin. "I have him. I have him."

He braced his hands on the edge of the basin, his head hanging low, water and sweat dripping from his nose. And then, finally, the dam broke.

Superman dissolved. Clark Kent dissolved.

There was only a father, alone in a castle of ice, sobbing uncontrollably into a basin of dirty water, his cries echoing off the indifferent crystals while his son floated in golden stasis behind him.

The silence of the Fortress was broken by a soft, melodic chime.

Clark stood by the dais, his hands clasped tightly behind his back to hide the tremors that still occasionally seized his fingers. He had spent the last two hours pacing the length of the medical bay, counting the seconds, watching the golden fluid in the matrix swirl around the boy who was supposed to be dead.

The chime sounded again—a higher pitch this time.

Cycle Complete.

The golden liquid began to recede, draining rapidly through vents in the floor of the pod. The amber light faded, replaced by a soft, pulsating blue. With a pneumatic hiss that sounded like a sigh of relief, the crystal lid of the sarcophagus split down the middle and retracted.

Clark moved instantly.

Inside, Jason lay wet and shivering on the bio-bed. The gray pallor of death was gone, replaced by the flushed pink of new, oxygenated blood. The bruises on his jaw were yellowing ghosts of what they had been. His left arm, previously twisted, lay straight at his side.

He looked small. He looked twelve years old again.

"Jason?" Clark whispered, leaning over the edge of the pod, his shadow falling over the boy’s face.

Jason’s eyelids fluttered. Thick, wet lashes stuck to his cheeks. He groaned, a low, rasping sound that was the most beautiful thing Clark had ever heard.

"Nnngh…" Jason shifted, his brow furrowing. "B?"

Clark’s heart squeezed. "It's me, Jay. It's Papa."

Jason’s eyes cracked open. They were glassy, the pupils blown wide as his brain tried to reboot after two weeks of total shutdown. He blinked, trying to focus on the blurry dark haired figure hovering above him.

"Papa?" Jason croaked. His voice was raw, like he’d been screaming for hours.

"I'm here," Clark said, reaching out to brush a wet lock of hair from Jason’s forehead. His skin was warm. Fever-warm, but alive. "I'm right here."

Jason tried to sit up, but his limbs flailed weakly, like he was moving through molasses. Clark gently placed a hand on his shoulder, supporting him as he struggled to prop himself up.

"Wha… where…?" Jason looked around, his eyes widening as he took in the towering crystal spires and the endless white of the Fortress. "The… ice castle?"

"The Fortress," Clark corrected gently, a sad smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Jor-El fixed you up. You were hurt pretty bad."

Jason slumped back against Clark’s arm, his breathing heavy. He squeezed his eyes shut, and Clark could see the gears turning, the fragmented memories trying to slot back into place.

"The warehouse," Jason whispered, his breath hitching. "The… the bomb. The timer."

Clark stiffened. "Don't think about it, Jay. You're safe."

"I couldn't… the door was locked," Jason mumbled, his voice rising in panic. "Sheila… Mom… she left me. She left me there."

"Shhh," Clark soothed, rubbing circles on Jason’s back. "It's over. It's done."

Jason opened his eyes, looking up at Clark with a desperate, childish clarity. "I heard him, Papa. I heard Dad."

Clark froze. "You… you heard him?"

"Yeah," Jason nodded weakly. "Everything was hurting. And it was so loud. And then… then everything went black. But I heard him. I heard B calling my name. He was screaming it." Jason let out a shaky breath, leaning his head against Clark’s chest. "I knew he'd come. I knew he wouldn't let me die."

Clark felt like he had been punched in the gut all over again.

Bruce had screamed. He had screamed Jason’s name until his voice was gone, digging through the rubble of the warehouse with his bare hands until his gloves were shredded. But he hadn't made it. He had been too late. The voice Jason heard… was it a hallucination? A final firing of synapses as the brain died? Or was it Bruce’s grief echoing across the metaphysical plane?

"I… I thought I was gone," Jason confessed, his voice trembling. "It felt like I was falling. But then I heard him. And now I'm here." He looked up at Clark. "I was in a coma, right? That's why I'm here? B brought me to you because the hospitals couldn't fix it?"

Clark looked down into those trusting blue eyes.

He had a choice. He could tell the truth. He could tell Jason that he had died. That he had been buried in the cold ground for two weeks. That Bruce hadn't saved him—that nobody had saved him until it was too late.

He imagined the horror on Jason’s face. The trauma of knowing you had crossed the threshold and been ripped back. The realization that both his fathers had failed him.

Clark couldn't do it. He couldn't break him again.

"Yeah, kiddo," Clark lied, his voice steady and warm. "You were… you were out for a while. It was touch and go. Bruce… Bruce did everything he could."

Technically, it wasn't a lie. Bruce had done everything he could.

"Is he okay?" Jason asked immediately, shifting into Robin mode. "Is B okay? Did he get the Joker?"

"B is… he's recovering," Clark said carefully. "He's worried about you. He's at home. He doesn't know you're awake yet."

Jason’s eyes widened. "We gotta go! We gotta tell him! He’s gonna be freaking out if I'm not there." He tried to swing his legs over the side of the pod, but his muscles trembled with exhaustion.

"Whoa, easy," Clark caught him. "You just came out of the matrix. Your body needs a minute."

"I'm fine!" Jason insisted, though he was leaning heavily against Clark. "I want to see Dad. And Dickie. Is Dickie home?"

"Dick is home," Clark promised. "Everyone is home."

He helped Jason sit on the edge of the pod. The boy was shivering in the cool air of the Fortress. Clark reached for the heavy red cape, the spare he kept in the Fortress, discarded on a nearby crystal console—his Superman cape—and wrapped it around Jason’s shoulders like a blanket.

"Okay," Clark said, making a decision. "We'll go. But we have to take it slow. You're still healing."

Jason pulled the heavy fabric around himself, burying his nose in the collar. He smelled like ozone and antiseptic, but underneath that, he smelled like Jason. Gunpowder, sweat, and cheap hair gel.

"Thanks, Papa," Jason mumbled, leaning his head against Clark’s arm again. "Thanks for fixing me."

Clark kissed the top of his head, holding back the tears that threatened to fall again. "Always, Jay. I'll always fix you."

He scooped Jason up into his arms, the red cape trailing on the floor.

"Let's go home," Clark said.

"Can we get ice cream?" Jason mumbled sleepily against his chest. "My throat tastes like pennies."

Clark let out a wet, shaky laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, we can get ice cream."

The flight back was nothing like the flight North.

Going to the Fortress, Clark had been a bullet of desperation, tearing through the sky with a dying boy clutched to his chest, praying to every deity in the galaxy. Now, the return trip felt like a victory lap, albeit a slow, careful one.

Clark held Jason securely in his arms, the boy bundled so tightly in the heavy red cape that only his nose and a tuft of black hair were visible. The Kryptonian fabric was nearly indestructible, shielding Jason from the wind and the biting cold of the upper atmosphere.

"You okay in there, Jay?" Clark asked, his voice vibrating through his chest where Jason’s head was resting.

"M'warm," came the muffled reply. Jason shifted, burrowing deeper into the crook of Clark’s arm. "But I'm starving. Do you think Alfred made lasagna? I feel like I haven't eaten in weeks."

Clark’s heart skipped a beat. You haven't, he thought. You haven't eaten in fourteen days because you were dead.

"I'm sure Alfred can whip something up," Clark said aloud, keeping his tone light. "He always knows when we're coming home. It’s his superpower."

"Better than yours," Jason mumbled sleepily.

Clark chuckled, the sound rumbling in the thin air. "Hey now. Flight is pretty cool."

"Yeah, but can you make a soufflé that doesn't collapse? didn't think so."

They were passing over Canada now, the vast stretches of pine and snow giving way to the twinkling grid of cities. Clark flew lower than usual, keeping his speed manageable. He didn't want to jar Jason. Every time the boy twitched or sighed, Clark’s arms instinctively tightened, a lingering reflex from the terror of the graveyard.

He looked down at the bundle in his arms. Jason was safe. His heartbeat was strong—a steady, rhythmic drum that Clark focused on to the exclusion of everything else. The "thump-thump" that had been missing from the world was back, and the universe finally felt balanced again.

"Papa?" Jason asked, his voice small against the wind.

"Yeah, Jay?"

"Is Dad… is he gonna be mad I got hurt?"

The question hung in the air, heavy and heartbreaking. Jason, who had been beaten with a crowbar and blown up, was worried about disappointing Batman.

"No," Clark said firmly, banking slightly to the left to avoid a cloud bank. "No, Jason. He’s not going to be mad. He’s going to be the happiest man on the planet."

"He was screaming really loud," Jason whispered. "In the warehouse. He sounded… scared. I’ve never heard B scared before."

Clark swallowed the lump in his throat. "He loves you, Jason. More than anything. When you get hurt, it scares us both."

Jason was silent for a moment, processing this. Then he poked his head out of the cape, the wind whipping his hair back. He looked down at the approaching lights of the Eastern Seaboard.

"We're close to Jersey," Jason noted, his internal GPS as sharp as ever.

"About ten minutes out," Clark confirmed.

"Good," Jason grunted, rubbing his throat. "Because I wasn't kidding about the ice cream. That goop in the tank… it tasted like battery acid and pennies. I need to wash it out."

"Mint chip?" Clark guessed, smiling.

"Obviously," Jason scoffed. "And maybe a double scoop. Since I'm ‘recovering’ and all."

Clark felt a wave of warmth that had nothing to do with solar radiation. This was it. This was the domestic normalcy he had craved for two weeks. Just a dad and his son, getting ice cream after a "hospital visit."

"There's that 24-hour diner near the bridge," Clark suggested. "Or the little stand near Robinson Park?"

"The stand," Jason decided. "The diner has weird spoons."

"The stand it is."

Clark began his descent. He aimed for a quiet, wooded area on the outskirts of Gotham, a little further from the Manor than planned but close enough to stop over for ice-cream first. He couldn't just land in the middle of the city—Superman carrying a wrapped bundle that looked suspiciously like a child would raise too many questions, especially since the world knew Robin had "died" in Ethiopia. He needed to be discreet.

He touched down gently in a small clearing surrounded by oaks. The ground was soft, covered in wet leaves, but the rain had stopped. The air here was damp and smelled of wet asphalt and pine—the perfume of Gotham.

Clark set Jason down. The boy wobbled for a second, his legs still finding their strength after the muscle atrophy of death and the rapid regrowth of the matrix. Clark hovered his hands around him, ready to catch him, but Jason found his footing and shook off the cape.

He stood there in his tattered, blood-stained Robin tunic and green tights. The uniform was a disaster—torn in places, scorched in others—but Jason wore it like armor.

"I look like a mess," Jason observed, looking down at himself. "Alfred is gonna kill me for ruining the Kevlar."

"I think he'll let it slide this time," Clark said, reaching into the pile of red fabric he was holding. He pulled out the heavy flannel shirt he had discarded earlier—it was dry now, thanks to a quick blast of heat vision during the flight—and draped it over Jason’s shoulders. It was comically large on him, swallowing him like a tent.

"Come on," Clark said, offering his hand. "The stand is just down the road. You can wear the shirt. We'll say… we'll say we went camping and you fell in a creek."

Jason rolled his eyes but slipped his arms into the sleeves, buttoning it up to his chin. "Lame cover story, Papa. But I'll take it for ice cream."

Clark took Jason’s hand. It was warm. It gripped back.

"Let's go," Clark said, squeezing the small hand tight. "And then we're going home to see B."

They walked out of the treeline and onto the quiet, empty road, the neon sign of the ice cream stand glowing pink and blue in the distance. Clark smiled, the relief making him feel light enough to fly without powers. He had his son back. The nightmare was over.

He had no idea it was just beginning.

The ice cream stand was a roadside relic called "Big Al’s Scoops," a small box of a building painted in peeling pastels, sitting alone on a stretch of road that bordered the dense woods of the Gotham outskirts. The pink and blue neon sign buzzed with an electrical hum that seemed loud in the quiet dawn.

It was empty, save for a bored-looking teenager wiping down the counter inside.

"Here," Clark said, guiding Jason to a weathered wooden picnic table that sat in the pool of light cast by the sign. The bench was damp from the earlier rain, so Clark quickly used a burst of low-level heat vision to dry a spot before Jason could sit down.

Jason slid onto the bench, the oversized flannel shirt bunching around him. He looked like a refugee from a grunge band—messy hair, bruised face, and swimming in plaid. He rested his chin on his arms, his eyes drooping. The adrenaline of the resurrection was fading, leaving behind the exhaustion of a body that had been dead hours ago.

"You stay right here," Clark said, adjusting the collar of the shirt to cover Jason’s neck. "I’ll be right back. Two scoops of Mint Chip, coming up."

"And sprinkles," Jason mumbled, his voice thick with sleep. "Don't forget the sprinkles, Papa."

"And sprinkles," Clark promised with a smile.

He turned and walked the fifteen feet to the service window. The gravel crunched softly under his boots. He felt light. He felt… normal. The nightmare of the graveyard, the sterile horror of the Fortress, the terrifying flight north—it all felt miles away now. He was just a dad buying ice cream for his son.

"Can I help you?" the teenager asked, not looking up from his phone.

"Yeah," Clark said, reaching for his wallet. "Two double scoops of Mint Chocolate Chip. Rainbow sprinkles on both."

"Cup or cone?"

"Cone, please."

Clark leaned against the counter, fishing for cash. He listened to the scrape of the metal scoop against the frozen tub. Scrape. Plop. Scrape. Plop. It was a mundane, beautiful sound.

He glanced back at the table. Jason was there, head resting on his arms, a small mound of plaid in the darkness. Clark smiled and turned back to pay.

"That'll be eight fifty," the kid said.

Clark handed over a ten. "Keep the change."

The kid started scooping the second cone. Clark watched him. He thought about Bruce. He thought about how he was going to walk through the front door of the Manor and see the life return to Bruce’s eyes. He thought about how he was going to explain Jason. He thought about how perfect this moment was.

He took the cones. The mint green ice cream was piled high, covered in brightly colored sugar.

"Thanks," Clark said.

He turned around.

"Okay, Jay, I got your—"

The words died in his throat. The picnic table was empty.

Clark stopped. His brain stuttered, refusing to process the visual information. He blinked, expecting Jason to reappear, expecting him to be ducked under the table tying his shoe.

"Jason?" Clark called out. His voice was calm, but there was a sudden, sharp spike in his heart rate.

Silence. Just the buzz of the neon sign and the rustle of the wind in the trees.

Clark frowned. He tuned his ear toward the picnic table, expecting to hear Jason’s steady heartbeat—the rhythm he had just spent two hours memorizing in the Fortress.

Silence.

Not just quiet—absolute, artificial silence. A void in the soundscape where the wind and the insects should be.

"Jason!"

The picnic table was empty.

There were no tyre tracks. There was no screech of rubber on asphalt. There was just a lingering shimmer in the air—the ozone scent of teleportation residue or Zeta-beam decay—and the faint, high-pitched whine of a sonic dampener fading into the distance.

"No," Clark breathed. The word was a ghost.

The ice cream cones slipped from his fingers, hitting the pavement with a wet splat. The mint green scoops shattered, melting instantly on the dirty ground.

He didn't just look; he scanned. He dropped to a crouch, his eyes burning with blue intensity as he analyzed the gravel around the table.

Scuff marks. A struggle. But no footprints leading away. They hadn't driven off; they had vanished.

League tech, Clark realized, a spike of ice going through his chest. Or magic. They knew I was here.

They had used a dampener field to mask the sound of the struggle. They had used transport tech to bypass his speed. They had waited for the one second his guard was down, and they had been silent enough to fool a God.

He stood up. A low, terrifying sound began to build in his chest—a growl that was entirely inhuman.

Three minutes.

He had taken his eyes off him for three minutes.

Clark stood up. A low, terrifying sound began to build in his chest—a growl that was entirely inhuman. He focused his hearing, pushing it out in a desperate, widening sphere. He listened for Jason’s heartbeat. The heartbeat he had just spent two hours memorizing. The heartbeat he had dug out of the grave.

Thump-thump… thump-thump…

Millions of hearts. Birds. Deer. Commuters. Truck drivers.

He couldn't find it.

They were gone.

Clark looked down at the melting ice cream, the rainbow sprinkles dissolving into a grey sludge. The horror that washed over him was worse than the graveyard. In the graveyard, Jason had been dead, but he had been there. He had been safe in the earth.

Now, he was gone.

Someone had watched them. Someone had waited for Superman to turn his back. Someone had stolen Clark’s son again.

Clark’s eyes began to glow red, the heat vision flaring uncontrollably with his panic.

Waking up felt uncomfortably familiar.

For the second time in what felt like twenty-four hours, Jason drifted back to consciousness with a pounding headache and a mouth that tasted like chemicals. But unlike the sterile, antiseptic awakening in the Fortress of Solitude, this one was damp, cold, and smelled of mildew and old stone.

Jason groaned, trying to lift his hand to rub his temple, but metal clinked against stone.

He froze.

His eyes snapped open. He wasn't in the ice castle anymore. He wasn't at the ice cream stand with Papa. He was lying on a slab of rough-hewn stone in a cell that looked like it belonged in a history book about the Inquisition.

"Papa?" Jason whispered, his voice trembling slightly.

The only answer was the steady drip-drip-drip of water leaking from the ceiling.

Panic, cold and sharp, spiked in his chest. Did Papa lose me? The thought was irrational—Superman didn't lose things, especially not his son—but the memory of the ice cream stand was fuzzy. He remembered the sprinkles. He remembered the nice smell of the woods. A hand over his mouth, and a sickly sweet smell that made the world go grey.

Chloroform, Jason’s training supplied. Amateurs. Or professionals who didn't want to waste the good stuff on a kid.

He sat up, the oversized flannel shirt Clark had given him bunching around his waist. He was still wearing it, buttoned over his tattered Robin tunic. At least he wasn't cold.

He scrambled off the slab and rushed to the front of the cell. Heavy iron bars, rusted with age but thick as his wrist, separated him from a torch-lit corridor.

"Hey!" Jason shouted, rattling the bars. "Let me out! Do you know who my dad is? He's gonna—"

He cut himself off. Rule number one of being Robin: Don't give away the identity.

"He's gonna sue you!" Jason finished lamely.

"Silence," a voice echoed from down the hall.

Jason pressed his face against the cold iron, trying to see. Two shadows were moving against the flickering torchlight on the far wall. Guards. They were dressed in dark robes, hoods pulled up, swords hanging at their hips.

Swords? Jason frowned. Who uses swords in New Jersey?

He strained his ears. The matrix had fixed his hearing, and maybe it was just the adrenaline, but he could pick up their conversation clearly.

"…reckless to take the boy," one guard was muttering. His accent was thick, archaic. "The Detective will rain fire upon us."

The Detective.

Jason’s blood ran cold. That wasn't a nickname for a rich guy in Gotham. That was Ra's al Ghul’s name for Bruce.

"The Head of the Demon gave the order," the second guard replied dismissively. "Talia wishes to secure the legacy. The Detective's son is… insurance."

Talia.

Jason gripped the bars tighter. He knew about Talia. Bruce got weird whenever her name came up—a mix of sad and grumpy. She was dangerous.

"Insurance for what?" the first guard asked. "He already is the heir. The boy is secure in the tower. Why do we need a random one from the street?"

The heir. The boy.

Jason’s brain short-circuited. Boy? What boy?

"Because," the second guard said, stopping just out of Jason’s line of sight. "The Detective will try to save both. But he will come only leaving with his firstborn. He will come for the eldest... D—"

"Be quiet, you fool!"

The guard cut himself off, but Jason had heard enough.

The Firstborn. The Eldest. D.

Dick.

Jason’s heart stopped.

They weren't talking about him. They didn't know he was Jason Todd. They were talking about the first Robin.

They have Dickie, Jason realized, the horror washing over him. That’s why Papa looked so sad when I asked about him! That's why he wasn't at the Ice Castle with Papa!

His mind raced, connecting dots that didn't exist. Jason assumed he had been in a coma for two weeks. If Dick had been missing that whole time… if the League of Assassins had him…

"Oh god," Jason breathed. "They have my brother."

He looked around the cell with new desperation. He wasn't just a hostage anymore. He was the rescue team. Papa was probably looking for him, but Papa couldn't see through lead, and these dungeons felt deep underground. Bruce was "recovering" at home.

It was up to him.

He looked at the bars again. They were old iron, pitted with rust. But more importantly, they were spaced for adults.

Jason looked down at himself. The resurrection matrix had healed him, but it hadn't made him any bigger. In fact, after two weeks of being… asleep… without food, he felt scrawnier than usual. He was small for twelve anyway—street life had stunted his growth before Bruce took him in.

He grabbed the flannel shirt and stripped it off, folding it quickly and shoving it through the bars onto the floor outside. Then he sucked in a breath.

Okay, Jason. Think skinny thoughts, like Dickie showed me. Think about that time you squeezed through the vent at the museum.

He turned sideways. He pushed his head through the widest gap between the bars. His ears scraped painfully against the iron, but his head popped through.

Step one: complete.

"Okay," Jason whispered, sweat beading on his forehead. "Shoulders. Dislocate if you have to. Do not get stuck."

He exhaled until his lungs were empty. He wiggled his left shoulder through, twisting his body at an angle that made his spine pop. The rough iron dug into his chest, scraping against the Robin tunic, but the Kevlar weave was slick enough to slide.

He was halfway out.

"Come on," he gritted out, pushing with his legs.

His hips were the problem. The utility belt was gone—stolen by the guards—but his hip bones scraped against the metal. He was stuck.

Down the hall, the footsteps started coming back.

"Check on the prisoner," the second guard commanded.

Jason’s eyes widened. He didn't have time for finesse.

He planted his feet against the base of the bars and shoved.

Pain flared along his ribs as the metal bit into his skin, tearing the tunic. With a sound of ripping fabric and a suppressed yelp, Jason popped out of the cell like a cork from a bottle, tumbling onto the stone floor of the corridor.

He scrambled up instantly. He grabbed the flannel shirt, not bothering to put it on, and darted into the shadows just as the guards rounded the corner.

"He is gone!"

"Impossible! The bars are solid!"

"He must be a demon! Damn Gotham child…Find him! Sound the alarm!"

Jason didn't wait to hear the rest. He was barefoot, moving silently on the cold stone, a ghost in a green tunic. He had no gadgets. No backup. Just a head full of wrong assumptions and a burning need to save his big brother.

Hang on, Dickie, Jason thought, turning down a dark staircase that smelled like sulfur. I'm coming.

The staircase ended in a heavy wooden door that leaked a sickly, viridian light from underneath its frame.

Jason pressed his ear against the wood. Silence.

He pushed the door open a crack, slipping through with the fluid grace Dick had drilled into him during those endless nights on the rooftops of Gotham. He found himself in a cavernous chamber that looked like it had been carved out of the mountain's heart.

It was hot here. Oppressively so. The air was thick with humidity and that rotten-egg stench of sulfur he had smelled earlier, but now it was overpowering, mixing with the scent of ancient incense and something metallic, like copper and blood.

In the center of the room lay a pool.

It wasn't water. It was a bubbling, luminous sludge that glowed with a radioactive neon green intensity, casting long, dancing shadows against the stalactites on the ceiling. It hissed and popped, sounding like a living thing breathing in its sleep.

"Gross," Jason whispered, wrinkling his nose. "What kind of hot tub is this?"

He crept around the perimeter, clutching the flannel shirt in a ball against his chest. His bare feet made no sound on the warm stone. He needed to find a way out, a ventilation shaft, a door—anything that would lead him to the holding cells where they were keeping Dick.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

Footsteps.

They weren't coming from the door he had just used. They were coming from the archway on the far side of the chamber. And they were fast.

"Did you check the perimeter?" a voice barked, echoing off the stone walls.

"The intruder is small," another voice replied. "He could be anywhere."

Jason froze. He looked around frantically. The room was empty save for a few ceremonial altars that were too small to hide behind. There were no tapestries, no dark corners—the glow from the pool illuminated everything in a harsh, unforgiving light.

The footsteps grew louder. Shadows stretched across the floor from the archway. They were seconds away.

Jason looked at the pool.

It was the only cover.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," he muttered.

He didn't hesitate. He couldn't. If they caught him, they’d put him back in that cell, or worse, use him to get to Bruce. He had to save Dickie.

Jason took a deep breath—remembering the lessons in the backyard pool at the Manor just last summer.

“Big breath, Little Wing,” Dick had said, holding Jason’s stomach as he practiced floating. “Fill your lungs all the way to the bottom. Don't panic. The water will hold you if you let it.”

Don't panic, Jason told himself.

He tossed the flannel shirt behind a small stone pillar—hoping they wouldn't notice a ball of plaid—and vaulted over the rim of the pit.

He slipped into the green slime without a splash, forcing himself down, down, down.

The heat was instantaneous. It wasn't scalding, but it felt electric. It felt like jumping into a bath of battery acid and Pop Rocks. The liquid was thick and viscous, clinging to his skin like oil.

Jason squeezed his eyes shut, but the green light burned through his eyelids. He kicked downward, grabbing a jagged rock near the bottom of the pool to anchor himself. His lungs were already burning, but he forced himself to stay still.

Above him, distorted by the surface, he saw the dark shapes of the guards stop at the edge of the pit.

"The master says the Pit has been restless today," one of them said, their voice sounding garbled and distant underwater.

"It senses the shift in the balance," the other replied. "Come. He is not here."

Jason waited. He counted the seconds in his head, just like Batman taught him. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi.

His chest screamed for air. The pressure in his head was building.

Suddenly, a bubble of gas erupted from the floor of the pit next to him, knocking him off balance. Jason gasped—a reflex he couldn't control.

Liquid rushed into his mouth.

It tasted vile. It tasted like rot and sugar and burnt wire.

He gagged, swallowing a mouthful of the glowing slime before he could clamp his mouth shut again. The liquid burned all the way down his throat, settling in his stomach like a heavy, hot stone.

Get out. Get out now.

He kicked off the bottom, breaking the surface with a gasp that sprayed green droplets into the air.

He scrambled out of the pool, slipping on the slick stone, coughing and retching. He wiped the slime from his face, his hands shaking.

But as the air hit his lungs, the shaking stopped.

It didn't just stop; it was deleted.

A sudden, violent surge of energy slammed into him. The exhaustion from the resurrection, the hunger, the fatigue—it all vanished. His vision sharpened, the colors of the room becoming hyper-real. The sulfur smell didn't bother him anymore; it smelled like fuel.

He stood up. He felt… big. He felt like his skin was too tight for his body. A low, buzzing hum started at the base of his skull, whispering things he couldn't quite catch.

Stronger, the hum seemed to say. Faster. They took him. Make them pay.

Jason shook his head, water flying from his hair. "Whoa," he breathed. His voice sounded deeper to his own ears. "Okay. That was… weird."

He looked at his hands. They weren't trembling. They were clenched into fists so tight his knuckles were white. He felt a sudden, irrational urge to punch the stone wall, just to see if it would break.

"Adrenaline," Jason muttered, grabbing the flannel shirt from behind the pillar and shoving his arms into the sleeves. He buttoned it wrong, missing a loop, but he didn't care. "Just adrenaline. Gotta find Dickie."

He didn't feel the cold anymore. He didn't feel fear. He felt a burning, green-tinted drive that pushed him forward.

He sprinted toward the archway the guards had come from, his footsteps silent but predatory. He wasn't just sneaking anymore; he was hunting.

"Hang on, Dickie," Jason whispered, a grin that was a little too sharp tugging at his lips. "I'm gonna get you out. And may batman help anyone who gets in my way."

Jason sprinted toward the archway, his footsteps silent but predatory. The world was hyper-real, the colors too bright, the shadows too deep. The buzzing hum at the base of his skull was louder now, urging him forward, demanding action.

He tracked the guards by the heat of their footprints on the cold stone—a new trick his eyes had learned in the green water. They led him up a spiraling ramp, away from the sulfur-choked caverns and toward the upper levels where the air smelled of sandalwood and expensive silk.

"The Heir's chambers," he whispered to himself, his voice sounding older, rougher. "Hang on, Dickie. I'm coming."

He reached a set of double doors that looked more like the entrance to a museum than a prison cell. They were carved from heavy cedar and reinforced with gold bands. There were no guards outside—arrogant jerks probably thought the mountain itself was enough security.

Jason didn't knock.

He didn't pick the lock, either. The green fire in his veins didn't have patience for finesse.

He drew back his leg and kicked the lock mechanism with enough force to shatter concrete. The wood splintered with a deafening crack, and the doors swung inward, banging against the stone walls.

"Nobody move!" Jason roared, diving into the room, his fists raised, ready to take down an army of ninjas to get to his brother. "I'm taking him home!"

He scanned the room in a split second, looking for the familiar black-and-blue uniform, or maybe Dick in civilian clothes tied to a chair.

The room was empty of ninjas.

It was also empty of Dick Grayson.

Jason skidded to a halt, his bare feet sliding on a plush Persian rug. He spun around, checking the corners.

"Dickie?" he hissed. “You big oaf, say something.”

Nothing.

The room was massive, draped in green velvet and gold tapestries. A balcony overlooked the dark, stormy ocean far below. In the center of the room, sitting on a raised dais like a throne, was an ornate crib carved from black wood.

Jason blinked. The green haze in his vision receded just enough to let confusion seep in.

"A crib?"

He crept forward, the oversized flannel shirt trailing behind him like a cape. He peered over the edge of the black wood.

Inside, sleeping on a mattress that cost more than Jason’s entire nonexistent childhood education, was a baby.

He was tiny—maybe three weeks old, if that. He had a tuft of black hair and a scowl that looked etched into his sleeping face. He was swaddled in green silk, looking like a very angry, very expensive burrito.

Jason stared at the baby. The baby slept on, unimpressed.

"You're not Nightwing," Jason whispered, accusingly.

He looked around the room again, panic starting to claw at the edges of the adrenaline. "Where is he? I heard them! They said 'the heir'! They said 'D'!"

He looked back at the crib. Embroidered on the corner of the silk blanket in gold thread was a single, stylized letter: D.

"D," Jason muttered. "D for… what? Dave? Doug?" He looked at the scowling baby. "You look like a Damian. Yeah. Definitely a Damian."

The realization hit him like a brick.

Dick was still missing.

"Oh no," Jason groaned, dragging his hands down his face. "I'm in the wrong room. I'm in the nursery… Why do assassins have a nursery?!"

He turned to leave, ready to sprint back into the hallway and find the real dungeon. He made it three steps before he stopped.

He looked back at the crib.

The room was cold. The balcony doors were open to the freezing sea air. And the guards he had heard earlier—the ones with the swords and the creepy voices—were coming back. He could hear their armor clanking down the hall.

"I can't just leave him," Jason muttered, torn between the mission and the morals Batman had drilled into his head. "These guys are psychos. They probably dip people in that glow-stick juice. You can't raise a baby in a glow-stick factory."

His brain, moving at the speed of the Pit, did the math.

Fact A: Bruce and Clark had been talking about maybe wanting another kid eventually. Jason had heard them whispering about it in the kitchen when they thought he was doing homework.

Fact B: This baby was currently surrounded by people wearing hoods and carrying swords.

Fact C: A baby counted as a kid, didn’t it? Well it would turn into a kid eventually.

Fact D: The Wayne family was way nicer than the League of Assassins. Alfred made cookies. These guys probably made poison.

Conclusion: Finders keepers.

"Okay," Jason said, nodding decisively. "New plan. I'm the big brother now. That counts as big brother duties."

He rushed back to the crib. The footsteps in the hall were getting louder.

"Hey, Damian," Jason whispered, reaching in. "Wakey wakey. We're breaking out."

He scooped the baby up. The kid was shockingly light, warm, and smelled like talcum powder and jasmine. Damian shifted, his little face scrunching up as he prepared to let out a wail that would alert every guard within a five-mile radius.

"Nope. No crying," Jason hissed, tapping the baby’s nose. "Cry later. Escape now."

He needed his hands free. He couldn't fight off ninjas while holding a porcelain doll.

Jason grabbed the expensive silk sheet from the crib. With a speed born of desperation, he improvised. He wrapped the sheet around his own torso, creating a makeshift sling, and tucked the baby securely against his chest, right over the tattered Robin logo under the flannel.

"Snug as a bug," Jason muttered, tying the knot tight at his shoulder.

He looked down. A tiny, grumpy face peered out from the folds of the flannel shirt and silk.

"Okay," Jason breathed. "I have a baby. I have no shoes. I have no idea where Dickie is."

Panic flared again. "How am I supposed to find Dick and save the baby? If I go looking for the dungeon, Damian might get hurt. If I leave with Damian, Dick is still trapped."

The door behind him creaked.

"Who is in there?" a guard shouted.

Jason’s head snapped toward the balcony. It was the only way out.

"Sorry, Dickie," Jason whispered, his heart aching. "I have to get the little guy safe first. Then I'll come back. I promise. I'll bring the whole cavalry."

The door to the nursery exploded inward, splintering against the stone wall.

Jason didn't flinch. He was already moving, a blur of oversized plaid and determination.

He wasn't thinking like a twelve-year-old anymore. He wasn't even thinking like Robin. The green fire in his blood had burned away the hesitation, leaving behind a manic, vibrating clarity.

He had a mission: Protect the asset.

The asset was currently drooling on his collarbone.

"Hold on, Mini-Bat," Jason muttered to the bundle strapped to his chest. "Turbulence ahead."

Two guards—Assassins, judging by the silent way they moved and the lethal curve of their scimitars—swept into the room. They scanned the crib.

"Empty!" one hissed.

"The balcony!" the other shouted, spotting the fluttering curtains.

They charged toward the open doors.

Jason, who was currently crouching on top of a high armoire in the corner, grinned. It was a sharp, feral expression that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Amateurs," he whispered.

He waited until they passed underneath him, then he dropped.

He didn't aim for their heads—too risky with the baby. Instead, he landed behind them, his bare feet making a soft slap on the Persian rug.

Before they could turn, Jason swept the leg of the trailing guard. The man went down with a heavy clatter of armor.

The second guard spun around, sword raising.

Jason didn't retreat. He stepped into the guard's space, ducking under the swing. The flannel shirt swooshed around him like his Papa’s cape.

He drove his elbow into the man’s solar plexus. It was a precise, brutal strike, fueled by the unnatural strength singing in his veins. The guard folded like a lawn chair.

"Nap time," Jason quipped, stepping over the groaning body.

The baby against his chest made a small, indignant squeak. As if complaining about how it was unjust of him to be awake and the ninja not.

"We’ll review later," Jason patted the silk-wrapped bundle. "Escape now."

He sprinted into the hallway.

The alarm was definitely raised now. A gong was sounding deep within the mountain, a low, rhythmic thrum that vibrated in Jason’s teeth.

He needed a route. Down was bad—dungeons, sulfur, green goo. Up was bad—nowhere to go but the roof.

"The sea," Jason muttered, his brain processing the layout at warp speed. "The balcony overlooked the sea. That means we're on a cliff."

He banked around a corner, his bare feet finding traction on the cold stone.

A squad of four assassins blocked the corridor ahead.

"There!" one shouted, pointing a gloved finger. "The intruder has the Heir!"

"I'm not an intruder, I'm a guest with a complaint!" Jason yelled back, his voice cracking slightly under the strain. "Your room service sucks!"

He didn't stop. He accelerated.

The Pit-madness whispered that he could take them. Fight them, it urged. Break them.

But the weight on his chest grounded him. He wasn't just Robin the Boy Wonder right now. He was a big brother. And big brothers didn't use babies as shields.

He slid into a side passage just as a shuriken embedded itself in the stone wall where his head had been a second ago.

"Rude!" Jason shouted over his shoulder.

He tore down the narrow service tunnel, his lungs burning. The baby, miraculously, seemed lulled by the motion, the tiny heartbeat thumping in sync with Jason’s own erratic rhythm.

The tunnel opened up abruptly into the night air.

Jason skidded to a halt, his heels digging into the loose gravel.

He was outside. But he wasn't safe.

He was on a narrow, stone promenade carved into the side of a sheer cliff face. Below him, hundreds of feet down, the dark ocean crashed violently against jagged rocks. Above him, the fortress loomed like a jagged tooth against the sky.

The wind whipped at him, ballooning the flannel shirt and threatening to tear the silk sling loose.

Jason wrapped his arms protectively around the baby, shielding Damian’s face from the salt spray.

"Okay," Jason panted, looking left, then right. "Okay. Not great options here, D-man."

To the left, the path ended in a sheer drop. To the right, a heavy iron gate blocked the way.

And behind him, the tunnel echoed with the sound of running boots.

"He is on the promenade! Cut him off!"

Jason backed up until his heels were on the very edge of the precipice. A loose pebble tumbled over the side. He didn't hear it hit the water.

Shadows spilled out of the tunnel. Six of them. Then ten.

They fanned out, their swords drawn, their faces hidden by dark cowls. They didn't rush him—they saw the bundle on his chest.

"Hand over the child," the lead assassin commanded, stepping forward. His voice was cold, bored. "And we will grant you a quick death."

"Tempting offer," Jason said, his voice trembling just a little. "But I'm gonna pass. My dad is really strict about curfews."

He looked down at the water. It was a terrifying drop. Even with this new energy, even with Dick’s swimming lessons... the fall alone would kill them.

But he couldn't go back. They’d take the baby. They’d put Jason back in the cell or maybe really kill him.

He was twelve years old. He was alone. He was cornered on a cliff in the Middle of Nowhere, Assassinstan.

The green haze in his vision flickered and died, leaving him suddenly cold, small, and terrified.

The assassins took another step.

Jason clutched the baby tighter. He could feel the tiny chest rising and falling against his own.

He closed his eyes. He didn't pray to God. He didn't pray to Batman.

He prayed to the sound he had heard in the stratosphere. He prayed to the heartbeat that had stopped for him in the rain.

He took a deep breath, fighting the sob in his throat.

He turned his face to the sky, to the stars that looked the same here as they did in Kansas.

"Papa," he whispered, the word carried away by the wind. "Help."

The atmosphere screamed.

Clark Kent did not fly. He erupted. Secret identity be damned, he was a father who had lost his son only mere hours after getting him back.

He left the gravel of the ice cream stand with a force that shattered the asphalt. He spent the next three hours tearing the Eastern Seaboard apart.

He had scanned every van, every truck, every safehouse within five hundred miles. He had moved so fast he was invisible, a desperate blur checking warehouses and docks.

Nothing.

They were gone. And they had a head start that defied physics.

Desperate, running out of options, Clark punched through the cloud layer, the moisture vaporizing against his skin.

He stopped in the upper stratosphere, the same place he had been floating what felt like a lifetime ago.

It was worse now.

"Jason!" Clark roared, the name tearing from his throat, loud enough to be heard in three states.

But no one answered. The wind snatched the name away, just as it had before.

Clark squeezed his eyes shut. His hands, curled into fists at his sides, were trembling so hard they blurred.

Focus, he commanded himself. You are Kal-El. You are the listener. Find him.

He dropped his mental shields.

Usually, Superman kept the world at a volume of three out of ten. He heard the sirens, the cries for help, the structural groans of bridges, but he kept them filtered, manageable. He respected privacy. He respected the noise limit. It’s what kept him sane.

Now, Clark turned the dial to ten.

The world crashed into him.

It was a physical blow, a sledgehammer of sensory data that staggered him in mid-air.

...breaking news in Metropolis, the fires are spreading...

...please, someone help me, my leg is trapped...

...Mr. President, the missiles are...

...I love you... I hate you... get out...

...baby crying in Star City... dog barking in Tokyo...

Six billion voices. Six billion heartbeats. The mechanical grind of tectonic plates. The hum of electricity in the power grids. The rush of blood in six billion veins.

It was a cacophony of chaos, a white-hot needle piercing his eardrums. Clark gasped, clutching his head, his vision swimming. It was too much. It was too loud.

Filter it, his mind screamed. Ignore the world. The world can burn. Find the boy.

He pushed the cries for help away.

Somewhere in Metropolis, a building was collapsing. Not today.

Somewhere in the Atlantic, a ship was sinking. I’m sorry.

Somewhere in Gotham, a mugging was turning into a murder. I can’t.

The guilt was a corrosive acid, eating at the very foundation of who Superman was supposed to be. He was letting them suffer. He was letting them die.

But if he saved them, he lost Jason.

Prioritize, Jor-El’s voice echoed in his memory, cold and logical. Save the Kryptonian offspring.

"Jason," Clark whispered, sweat beading on his forehead despite the freezing altitude. "Jason Peter Todd, com’on."

He focused on the rhythm he had memorized in the Fortress.

Thump... thump.

The sound of a heart that had been restarted. A heart that was still healing, still slightly out of sync, skipping a beat every now and then like a stuttering engine.

He swept his hearing across the globe like a radar dish.

North America. Nothing.

South America. Nothing.

Europe. Too many people. Too much noise.

He pushed East. He grit his teeth, the veins in his neck bulging as he strained to separate the signal from the static.

Thump-thump.

No, that was an old man in Berlin.

Thump-thump.

No, a runner in Kenya.

Thump... thump... thump.

Clark froze.

It was faint. It was thousands of miles away, buried under the sound of crashing waves and howling wind.

But it was there.

It was faster than it had been in the Fortress. It was racing, a frantic, terrified drum solo. Adrenaline. Fear.

Thump-thump-thump-thump.

"Got you," Clark breathed, his eyes snapping open.

He locked onto the sound, isolating it, amplifying it until it was the only thing in the universe.

And then, he heard something else.

Right next to Jason’s heartbeat—so close it was practically overlapping—was a second sound.

Flutter-flutter-flutter.

It was tiny. Rapid. Delicate as a moth's wings against a windowpane.

Clark frowned, confusion warring with his panic. It sounded like... a newborn.

Why was there a baby with Jason? Had they taken a hostage? Was Jason hurt?

The questions didn't matter. The location did.

He triangulated the sound. The Middle East. The mountains bordering the Arabian Sea. Nanda Parbat.

Ra’s, Clark realized, a growl building in his chest that sounded like shifting tectonic plates.

He shifted his body, aligning himself with the coordinates.

And then, he heard it. The whisper.

It was carried on the wind, thin and trembling, spoken by a boy standing on the edge of a cliff halfway across the world.

"Papa. Help."

Clark’s heart stopped.

The last vestige of Clark Kent—the reporter, the farm boy, the polite citizen—evaporated.

There was no more hesitation. There was no more filtering.

He didn't just break the sound barrier; he annihilated it.

The sky around him exploded in a cone of white mist as he accelerated, moving from zero to Mach 10 in a heartbeat. The shockwave would likely shatter windows in three adjacent counties, but Clark was already gone.

He was a red-and-blue blur, a streak of desperate godhood tearing across the Atlantic Ocean.

The water below him parted in a massive trench, displaced by the sheer pressure of his passing. The air around him turned into plasma.

Hold on, Clark projected the thought, screaming it across the psychic distance. Hold on, Jay-lad.

Papa is coming.

The blade of the assassin’s scimitar caught the moonlight, a curved silver promise of violence.

Jason didn't flinch. He didn't have the energy left to flinch. The green fire that had fueled his escape from the cell had burned out, leaving him shivering, small, and terrifyingly aware of the three-hundred-foot drop behind his heels.

"Give us the Heir," the assassin snarled, stepping closer. The tip of the sword hovered inches from the bundle strapped to Jason’s chest.

"No," Jason said. His voice was small, swallowed by the roar of the ocean below, but his feet stayed planted. He clutched the silk-wrapped baby tighter. "You can't have him."

The assassin’s eyes narrowed beneath the cowl. "Then perish with him."

He lunged.

It wasn't a feint. It was a killing strike, aimed directly at Jason’s neck.

Jason did the only thing he could. He leaned back.

Gravity, waiting patiently at his heels, reached up and grabbed him. The loose gravel under his bare feet gave way, and Jason Peter Todd tipped backward into the void.

He saw the assassin’s eyes widen in surprise. He saw the stone promenade disappear upward. He felt the stomach-churning lurch of freefall.

He squeezed his eyes shut and hugged the baby. I’m sorry, Dickie, he thought, the wind rushing past his ears. I tried.

He waited for the water. He waited for the bone-shattering impact against the rocks.

Instead, the world turned red.

It didn't happen in seconds. It happened in nanoseconds.

One moment, the air was empty, filled only with salt spray and the smell of ozone. The next, the atmosphere was displaced with a violence that defied physics.

There was no sound—not yet—because the object moving through the space was traveling faster than the sound waves could propagate.

There was just a sudden, hard pressure against Jason’s back. Not the stinging slap of water, but the solid, unyielding warmth of a wall that had moved to catch him.

An arm, thick as a tree branch and harder than steel, wrapped around his waist. Another hand, massive and gentle, cupped the back of his head, pressing his face into a shield of red fabric.

The freefall stopped.

It didn't stop with a jerk—that would have killed him just as surely as the rocks. It stopped in a perfect, calculated arc, momentum redirected with a mathematical precision that only a Kryptonian brain could process in real-time.

"I've got you," a voice rumbled against his ear.

It wasn't a shout. It was a whisper of absolute, terrifying fact.

Jason gasped, his lungs flooding with air that suddenly felt thin and freezing. He opened his eyes.

He wasn't falling. He was rising.

The ocean was a blur of dark blue beneath them. The stone fortress on the cliff was shrinking, becoming a toy castle.

And then, the sound caught up.

BOOM.

The sonic boom hit the cliff face like a physical hammer.

On the promenade, the assassin who had swung the sword was thrown backward off his feet, his robes flapping violently in the sudden hurricane-force wind. The stone railing where Jason had been standing shattered, the debris blown inward by the shockwave of Clark Kent’s arrival.

The assassins scrambled, shouting, looking at the sky, but there was nothing to see.

There was no enemy to fight. No target to strike.

There was only a red-and-blue streak tearing a hole in the clouds, already five miles away and climbing.

They hadn't just been beaten; they had been ignored.

Clark didn't look back.

He didn't care about the assassins. He didn't care about the politics of the League of Shadows or the sovereignty of Nanda Parbat. He didn't care about the windows he had just shattered in the nearest village.

He only cared about the bundle in his arms.

He banked sharply, leveling out at thirty thousand feet, where the air was still and the world below was just a map.

He slowed down. The roar of the wind faded to a manageable hush.

Clark looked down.

His heart was hammering against his ribs— thump-thump-thump —a frantic counterpoint to the smaller, terrified rhythm he was holding.

"Jason?" Clark asked, his voice cracking. He sounded wrecked. He sounded like he had run across the entire world. Which, effectively, he had.

Jason was trembling. He was pressed so tight against Clark’s chest that he seemed to be trying to merge with him. His hands were white-knuckled, gripping the front of Clark’s sappy Superman shirt.

Slowly, Jason peeled his face away from the inaccurate crest of the House of El.

He looked up. His eyes were wide, the pupils blown, reflecting the starlight. His face was pale, save for the dark circles of exhaustion and the smudge of green slime on his cheek.

"Papa?" Jason whispered.

Clark let out a breath that was half-sob. "I'm here, Jay. I'm here."

"You came," Jason said, as if he couldn't quite believe it. "I called, and you came."

"I will always come," Clark promised, shifting his grip to support Jason better. "There is nowhere in this universe you can go that I won't find you. Do you hear me? Nowhere."

Jason nodded, a jerky, spasmodic movement. Then, his eyes darted down to his own chest.

"The baby," Jason gasped, panic flaring again. "Is the baby okay? I tried to shield him, but—"

Clark looked down.

Nestled in the silk sling, sandwiched between Jason’s flannel-covered chest and Superman’s indestructible arm, was the infant.

The baby was wide awake. He wasn't crying. He was staring up at Clark with an expression of profound, judgmental annoyance, as if being carried into the stratosphere at anything below Mach 10 was merely a disruption to his nap schedule.

Clark blinked. He engaged his X-ray vision, doing a rapid sweep.

Heartbeat steady. Lungs clear. No broken bones. No signs of distress.

"He's fine," Clark said, the absurdity of the situation finally hitting him. "He's... he's perfectly fine, Jason."

Jason slumped, the adrenaline finally cutting out like a severed wire. "Oh, thank god. That's... that's good. That's Damian."

"Damian," Clark repeated, testing the name. "Okay. And... why do we have a Damian, Jason?"

"I stole him," Jason mumbled, burying his face in Clark’s shoulder again. "He's my little brother now. Big brother rules."

Clark stared at the top of Jason’s head. He stared at the stolen baby. He looked at the moon hanging over the horizon.

He should be asking questions. He should be demanding answers about the assassins, if Jason was really okay, why he stole a baby, the baby's parentage.

But he felt the warmth of Jason’s body against his. He felt the steady thump-thump of a heart that had been silent in a grave this morning.

Clark pulled them both closer, wrapping the cape around the two boys to shield them from the cold.

"Okay," Clark whispered into the wind. "Okay."

He turned West, toward the Atlantic, toward home.

"We can talk about it later," Clark said softly. "Let's just get you home."

Jason didn't answer. He was already asleep.

The silence at thirty thousand feet was absolute. There were no birds, no weather, just the thin, piercing whistle of the wind slicing over the energy field Clark had instinctively extended around them.

Below, the Atlantic Ocean was a vast, bruised expanse of ink, but Clark wasn't looking at the water. He was looking at the impossible cargo in his arms.

"I didn't mean to steal him," Jason said, the words tumbling out of him in a vibrating, chatter-teethed rush. "I mean, I did steal him, but I thought he was Dickie! They were talking about the 'Heir' and the 'Detective's son' and I heard a 'D' name and I just thought... I thought they had Nightwing tied up or something."

Jason shifted in Clark’s grip, his small, flannel-clad frame shivering violently against Clark’s chest. He looked up, his eyes wide and desperate, pleading for understanding.

"I couldn't leave him there, Papa. It was a factory for ninjas. They had a glowing green hot tub that tasted like battery acid. You can't raise a baby in a place like that!"

Clark blinked, his mind struggling to process the torrent of information. "Slow down, Jay. Just... breathe."

"Is Dickie okay?" Jason demanded, grabbing Clark’s cape with a fistful of fabric. "You said everyone was home. Did you check? Did you actually see him? What if he’s still there waiting for us?"

"I heard him," Clark said, his voice steadying the frantic boy. "I heard his heartbeat before I came to get you. Dick is in Blüdhaven, he’s actually on his way to the manor right now. He’s safe. He was never on the mountain."

Jason slumped, the tension cutting out of his strings. He let out a long, ragged exhale that fogged in the cold air. "Oh. Okay. That's... that's good. So I just... broke into a castle for no reason."

"I wouldn't say no reason," Clark murmured, looking down at the bundle sandwiched between them.

‘Does it really count as breaking in if you were already inside?’ Jason would have to come back to that at some point and really think about it. Dickie would probably laugh first and help second. Dad would definitely break it down like a serious case file, because Dad could make stealing cookies sound like a felony investigation.

The baby, Damian, had apparently decided that the flying rescue was merely a rocking motion. He was asleep again, his tiny, scowling face pressed against the rough flannel of Clark Jason’s shirt.

"Jason," Clark said, keeping his flight path steady and level, aiming for the eastern coast of the United States. "Tell me exactly what the guards said. Who did they say this baby belongs to?"

Jason rubbed at his nose, smearing a drying streak of Lazarus-green across his cheek. “They said Talia wanted to ‘secure the legacy.’ Said the Head of the Demon gave the order.” He frowned down at the sleeping baby bundled between them, then glanced back up at Clark. “And they kept saying ‘the Detective,’ which is what Ra’s calls Dad, but that doesn’t make any sense, because Dad was supposed to be back at home. So I thought maybe they meant Dickie somehow, or—or I don’t know.”

Clark’s breath caught.

Talia.

The name hit like a shard of kryptonite driven straight through his ribs.

The pieces didn’t just click. They slammed together.

There had been rumors, half-buried in intelligence briefings Clark read as Superman and the kind of polished, poisonous gossip Bruce learned to ignore at galas. Talia al Ghul had vanished from public view months ago. Long enough for whispers to start. Long enough for people to speculate. Long enough for no one to look too closely, because the world had been on fire in a dozen other ways and Gotham had been drowning in its own grief.

And two weeks ago, when that timeline should have meant something, Clark had been standing in the rain at a funeral, watching his family bury a child.

He had not been thinking about Talia al Ghul.

He looked down at the baby again—at the dark hair, the tiny, furious crease between his brows, the unmistakable shape of a Wayne scowl already stamped across his infant face.

“Oh,” Clark said softly, horror and realization curdling together in his chest.

Jason blinked at him. “What?”

Clark swallowed. “Jay… when they were talking about Bruce. They meant Bruce as in Dad.”

Jason stared at him for half a second. Then his eyes dropped to the baby. To the black hair. To the tiny, aristocratic glare the kid somehow managed even while asleep.

Jason went very still.

“No way,” he whispered.

Clark said nothing.

Jason looked back up at him, scandalized. “No. No, hold on. You’re saying Talia is the mom, Dad is the Dad, and—” His gaze snapped back to the baby again. “Holy crap.”

Clark closed his eyes for one brief, exhausted second.

“Yeah,” he murmured.

He looked down at the baby. He looked at the black tuft of hair that matched Bruce’s. He looked at the imperious scowl that was already identical to the one Bruce wore during Justice League meetings.

"Holy smokes," Jason breathed. "I kidnapped my brother."

"Half-brother," Clark corrected automatically, though his mind was reeling.

Bruce had a son. A biological son. And he didn't know. Or maybe he did? No, Bruce wouldn't leave a child with the League of Assassins. Bruce would have torn that mountain down brick by brick.

Plus Bruce was with him, they’ve been married for years. If Bruce wanted to be with Talia he wouldn’t have married Clark.

"Does B know?" Jason asked, cutting off Clark’s thought.

"I don't think so," Clark said softly.

He looked at the baby again. This child was the heir to the Demon. He was the grandson of Ra’s al Ghul. He was supposed to be raised as a weapon, a prince of shadows.

And Jason Todd—the boy who had died because of the Joker, the boy who had been failed by the chaotic cruelty of the world—had just swooped in and saved him.

Clark felt a bubble of hysterical laughter rising in his chest. It was absurd. It was terrifying. It was the most "Robin" thing that had ever happened.

"Am I in trouble?" Jason asked, his voice small. "I know we're not supposed to... you know... take people."

Clark tightened his arms around both of them, pulling them into the warmth of his bio-electric aura. The wind howled outside their little bubble, but in here, it was safe.

"No, Jason," Clark said, his voice fierce and thick with emotion. "You are not in trouble."

"But I stole a baby, even if it was from a warlord!"

"You saved a child," Clark corrected him. "You heard a call for help—even if it was just your own intuition—and you answered it. You saw someone small and helpless, and you didn't look away."

Clark kissed the top of Jason’s matted, dirty hair. "You did good, Jay-lad. You did so good. Just like your Dad."

It was moments like this that made it hard to believe Jason and Dick were not, by some miracle, both his and Bruce’s biological children.

Bruce had actually tested for it, once. Clark had investigated every impossible angle beside him.

The answer had been no, technically.

Jason leaned into the touch, closing his eyes. "Okay. Cool. Can we... can we go home now? I think the baby needs a diaper change. And I still really want that ice cream."

"We're going home," Clark promised.

He adjusted his course, banking slightly south. The lights of the Eastern Seaboard were glowing on the horizon, a golden smear against the dark.

"Papa?"

"Yeah, bud?"

"If this is B's kid... and you and B are... you know..." Jason gestured vaguely with one hand. "Does that mean you're going to leave? Because I want you to stay. Or do you have to leave and that lady Talia is going to come, I don’t want her to live with us. I want my papa.

Clark groaned, the weight of the domestic conversation awaiting him suddenly feeling heavier than the tectonic plate he had shifted last week. "Let's just focus on landing first, Jason."

"Coward," Jason mumbled sleepily.

Clark smiled. The nightmare of the graveyard felt a million miles away. The horror of the empty ice cream stand was fading.

He had Jason. He had the baby. And somewhere in the distance, in a dark manor house that had been silent for too long, Bruce was waiting.

The descent into Bristol was silent.

Clark didn't land with a sonic boom this time. He didn't crash through the atmosphere or tear up the lawn. He drifted down through the cloud cover like a falling leaf, the anti-gravity of his bio-field cushioning the air around them so that Jason wouldn't even feel the transition from flight to ground.

His black boots touched the gravel of the long, winding driveway of Wayne Manor.

The stones crunched softly—a terrestrial, familiar sound that felt jarring after hours of wind and high-altitude silence.

"We're walking?" Jason mumbled, his voice thick with sleep. He didn't lift his head from Clark's chest. He was still clutching the silk sling that held the baby, his fingers tangled in the expensive fabric.

"We're walking," Clark confirmed softly.

He could have flown them directly into the Cave. He could have phased through the library wall or landed on the balcony of the master bedroom. He had done all those things a thousand times before.

But not tonight.

Tonight, he wasn't Superman returning from a mission. He wasn't a Justice Leaguer dropping off a report.

He was a husband coming home.

He was a father bringing back the dead.

He needed to walk through the front door. He needed to cross the threshold properly, to bridge the distance between "gone" and "here" with steady, deliberate steps.

Clark adjusted his grip. His left arm was wrapped securely under Jason’s legs, supporting the boy’s weight. His right arm was curled around Jason’s back, his large hand splayed protectively over the small, rhythmic lump that was Damian.

Two sons. One resurrected, one stolen. And Clark, still covered in the mud of a New Jersey grave and the dust of a Nanda Parbat mountain, looked like he had dragged himself out of hell to get them here.

In a way, he had.

He walked up the driveway. The Manor loomed ahead, a dark, gothic silhouette against the night sky. Usually, the windows would be warm with light—Alfred in the kitchen, Bruce in the study, Dick in the game room.

Tonight, the house was dark. It looked like a mausoleum. A monument to the boy Clark was currently carrying.

The gargoyles on the eaves seemed to glare down at him, judging his tardiness. You’re late, they seemed to say. Two weeks late.

Clark swallowed the lump of guilt in his throat and kept walking.

He reached the massive oak doors. They were formidable, reinforced with steel and misery.

He stood there for a moment, listening.

He didn't use his X-ray vision. He didn't want to see the grief before he faced it. But he couldn't turn off his ears.

Inside, the house was quiet, but it wasn't empty.

He heard the grandfather clock ticking in the hallway. Tick… tock… tick… tock.

He heard the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.

And he heard the hearts.

Thump… thump. Slow. Heavy. Bruce. Still in the study. Still sitting in the dark.

Thump-thump-thump. Fast. Anxious. Dick. He was pacing in the library, his footsteps wearing a groove into the carpet.

Thump… thump. Steady, but light. Alfred. Upstairs, likely folding clothes he knew no one would wear.

And then, the fourth heart. The new one.

Thump-thump. Tim.

He was close. He was in the foyer, sitting on the bottom step of the grand staircase. Waiting.

Clark took a deep breath. The air smelled of rain and old stone.

"Ready, Jay?" he whispered to the bundle in his arms.

Jason shifted, burying his nose deeper into Clark's dirty flannel shirt. "Is B gonna be mad I didn't knock?"

"No," Clark said, his voice trembling just slightly. "No, he's not going to be mad."

Clark shifted Jason’s weight, freeing up one finger.

He reached out.

His hand was shaking. The hand that could crush coal into diamonds, the hand that had just ripped a coffin lid off its hinges, was trembling like a leaf.

He didn’t knock, he pressed the doorbell.

Ding-dong.

The sound echoed through the cavernous house, loud and startling in the silence. It wasn't just a chime; it was a declaration.

Clark lowered his hand and pulled Jason closer again.

He waited.

For a long, agonizing second, nothing happened. The Manor seemed to hold its breath.

Then, he heard it.

The scuffling of socks on hardwood. The thump-thump of the small heart in the foyer speeding up, skipping a beat in surprise.

"Hello?" a muffled voice called out from behind the wood. It was tentative, young. Tim.

Clark didn't answer. He couldn't. His throat was closed tight, welded shut by emotion.

The lock clicked. Then the deadbolt. Then the latch.

The heavy door groaned, the hinges protesting the intrusion, and slowly, inches at a time, it began to swing inward, revealing the warm, golden light of the hallway that spilled out onto the dark porch, illuminating the mud on Clark’s boots.

The door opened fully, revealing Timothy Drake in a pair of oversized pajamas that belonged to Dick, his hair a bird’s nest of stress and static.

He looked up. He saw the mud. He saw the ruined flannel shirt. He saw the dark circles under Clark’s eyes that spoke of a journey across the world and back.

But Tim didn't care about the dirt. He didn't care about the physics of how Clark had arrived without a sound.

He only saw the anchor.

"PAPA!" Tim screamed, the sound tearing out of his small chest like a detonator.

He didn't wait for permission. He launched himself across the threshold, slamming into Clark’s legs with the force of a cannonball. He wrapped his arms around Clark’s muddy thighs, burying his face in the denim, ignoring the damp graveyard soil that instantly stained his borrowed pajamas.

"You came back," Tim sobbed into Clark’s jeans. "You came back. B is dying. You have to fix him."

Clark couldn't move. He was a statue of fatherhood, anchored by a weeping child at his feet and two sleeping sons in his arms.

"I'm here, Tim," Clark said, his voice thick. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."

He shifted his weight, trying to keep his balance without dislodging the boys in his arms.

From down the hallway, the sound of rapid footsteps approached.

"Tim?"

The voice was ragged. It sounded like gravel grinding against glass.

Dick rounded the corner from the library. He stopped dead.

He looked like a ghost haunting his own house. His skin was translucent, his eyes red-rimmed and hollowed out by fourteen days of sleepless grief. He was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt that hung off his frame, his posture slumped as if gravity was pulling him down harder than anyone else.

He saw Clark.

For a second, relief washed over Dick’s face—a desperate, painful hope that maybe, just maybe, Superman could make the hurting stop.

"Clark," Dick breathed, taking a shaky step forward. "You... you're here. Is Bruce—"

Then, he stopped.

His eyes dropped from Clark’s face to the bundle in his left arm.

The bundle was wrapped in a Clark's cape, wearing a dirty flannel shirt. It was small. It was the size of a twelve-year-old boy.

And sticking out of the top of the bundle, messy black hair was matted with green slime and grave dirt.

The world stopped spinning. The grandfather clock in the hall seemed to freeze between ticks.

Clark watched as Dick’s pupils dilated, his brain rejecting the visual data it was receiving. It was impossible. It was cruel.

And then, the bundle moved.

Jason, roused by Tim’s shouting and the sudden stop, lifted his head from Clark’s shoulder. He blinked blearily against the bright light of the chandelier.

He looked at the hallway. He looked at the weeping child attached to Clark’s leg. Finally, he looked at the frozen figure of his older brother.

"Hey, Dickiebird," Jason rasped, his voice rough with sleep and disuse. "You look like crap."

The sound of Jason’s voice hit Dick like a physical blow.

All the air left Dick’s lungs in a rush. His knees—honed by years of acrobatics to land on the thinnest of wires—simply gave out.

He hit the floor hard. He didn't even put his hands out to catch himself. He just collapsed onto the Persian runner, staring up at Clark with an expression of pure, unadulterated terror.

"No," Dick whispered. "No. I'm dreaming. I'm sleeping. This isn't real."

"See?" Jason grumbled into Clark’s neck. "I told you he'd freak out. He thinks I'm a ghost."

Jason wiggled, kicking his legs. "Put me down, Papa. I'm not a baby. I can walk."

"Jason, wait," Clark tried to soothe him, glancing worriedly at Dick.

"Put. Me. Down."

Clark sighed. He carefully bent his knees—mindful of Tim still clinging to his leg like a limpet—and lowered Jason to the floor.

Jason’s bare feet touched the hardwood. He wobbled for a second, his legs still finding their strength, but he locked his knees and stood upright. He pulled the oversized flannel shirt tighter around himself.

He took one step toward Dick.

"Get up, idiot," Jason said, though his voice wavered. "I'm okay. B got me out. Just... I was in a coma for a bit. But I'm okay."

Dick didn't get up. He scrambled forward on his hands and knees, moving with a desperate, animalistic need.

He reached out, his trembling fingers hovering over Jason’s face, afraid to touch, afraid that his hand would pass through smoke.

He touched Jason’s cheek.

It was warm. It was solid. It was dirty and bruised, but it was real.

"Jay?" Dick choked out. A sob broke through his chest, shattering his composure completely. "Jay?"

"Yeah, it's me," Jason said, looking uncomfortable with the intensity of the emotion. "Jeez, Dick. You're crying more than that other new kid. By the way, when did we get him?"

Dick didn't speak. He surged forward and wrapped his arms around Jason’s waist, burying his face in the dirty flannel shirt. He squeezed so hard that Jason let out a squeak of protest.

"You're alive," Dick sobbed, the words muffled against Jason’s stomach. "You're alive. You're alive."

Jason stood there, looking down at his big brother—the invincible Nightwing, the leader of the Titans—falling apart on the floor.

Jason’s expression softened. The bravado melted away. He rested his chin on the top of Dick’s head and awkwardly patted his back.

"I'm here, Dickie," Jason whispered. "I'm back."

Clark watched them, tears streaming silently down his own face, cutting tracks through the mud. He felt Tim squeeze his leg tighter, witnessing the miracle he didn't quite understand but accepted with the easy faith of a child.

Then, from the direction of the kitchen, the service door swung open.

"Master Dick, I heard shouting, is everything—"

Pennyworth stepped into the hallway. He was carrying a silver tray with a teapot and four cups, his tuxedo impeccable even at four in the morning.

He stopped.

He saw the mud on the floor. He saw Clark Kent standing like a weary golem. He saw Dick Grayson on his knees.

And standing in the center of the chaos, wearing a shirt five sizes too big and grinning sheepishly, was the boy Alfred had helped dress for burial two weeks ago.

"Hi, Alfie," Jason said. "Is there any food? I'm starving."

Alfred didn't speak. His eyes widened behind his glasses. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.

For the first time in his life, the unflappable Alfred Pennyworth faltered.

His fingers went numb.

CRASH.

The silver tray hit the floor. The teapot shattered, sending hot honey-spiked milk and porcelain shards skittering across the hardwood.

The sound echoed through the silent house like a gunshot, signaling the end of the mourning and the beginning of the noise.

"Master Jason," Alfred whispered, his British reserve crumbling into dust. "My boy."

"Sorry about the mess," Jason winced, looking at the broken china. "I think I broke the butler."

Clark let out a wet, shaky laugh. He adjusted his grip on the silk bundle still hidden in his right arm—the secret that was about to make this reunion infinitely more complicated.

"Alfred," Clark said softly. "We're going to need more milk."

"And diapers," Jason added helpfully.

Alfred blinked, tearing his gaze away from Jason to look at Clark. "Diapers, sir?"

Clark gave a weak, terrified smile.

"Yeah," Clark said. "About that..."

Alfred recovered first. Of course he did. He was Alfred.

He stepped over the shards of his favorite Spode china as if they were merely fallen leaves, his composure reassembling itself brick by British brick.

"How about we move to the Drawing Room, I believe," Alfred said, his voice trembling only on the edges. "It is... warmer. And there are fewer sharp objects on the floor."

He gestured with a shaking hand, ushering the impossible parade further into the house.

Clark moved mechanically. He felt heavy. The adrenaline that had carried him across the Atlantic at Mach 10 was evaporating, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion and the terrifying realization that he now had to explain this.

He shuffled into the living room, his muddy boots ruining a carpet that was older than the United States. Tim was still attached to his leg, a small, sobbing barnacle in oversized pajamas. Dick was leaning heavily on Jason, clutching the boy’s flannel-covered arm as if he were afraid Jason would dissolve into mist if he let go.

And Jason... Jason was looking around the room with wide, frenetic eyes, the manic energy of the resurrection matrix warring with the crash of fatigue.

"It looks exactly the same," Jason noted, his voice raspy. He touched the back of a velvet armchair. "I thought... I thought you guys would have changed it. Or moved."

"We didn't move, Jay," Dick whispered, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. "We just... stopped."

Clark gently detached Tim from his leg and placed him next to him, sinking onto the sturdy leather sofa. He kept his right arm curled protectively against his chest, shielding the sleeping bundle hidden within the hold of his arm.

"Alfred," Clark said softly. "Is he..."

"He is upstairs, sir," Alfred replied, removing his glasses to wipe them. "I believe the commotion has—"

THUD.

It wasn't a footstep. It was the heavy, dragging sound of a man who no longer saw the point in lifting his feet.

Clark froze. The heartbeat he had been monitoring—the slow, heavy thump... thump—had moved. It was at the top of the stairs. Now it was descending.

"What is going on down here?"

The voice was a ruin. It was Bruce, but stripped of theBatman^Ó growl and the Brucie Wayne lilt. It was just a flat, dead thing.

Bruce Wayne stood in the doorway. He was wearing a charcoal dressing gown that hung loosely off his frame. He hadn't shaved in days, his jaw covered in a thick, graying beard. His eyes were sunken pits of shadow, dull and listless.

He looked at the broken china in the hall. He looked at Alfred’s tear-streaked face.

Then, he looked at the sofa.

He saw Clark first.

For a heartbeat, something flickered in Bruce’s eyes—a spark of anger, perhaps, or a flash of the old, deep love that he had been trying to bury along with his son. But it was quickly extinguished by a crushing wave of hollowness.

"Clark," Bruce said. It wasn't a greeting. It was an exhale. "I told you. I can't... I can't do this right now. Please go."

He turned his head away, unable to look at the S-shield, unable to look at the man who was a living reminder of the sun when Bruce was drowning in the dark.

"I didn't come alone, Bruce," Clark said, his voice breaking.

Bruce frowned, his brow furrowing. He looked back, his gaze sliding past Clark to the figure standing by the fireplace.

The figure in the oversized, muddy flannel shirt. The figure with the messy black hair and the white streak that hadn't been there before.

Bruce stopped breathing.

The world narrowed down to a single point. The physics of the room seemed to bend, gravity increasing tenfold.

Bruce stared. He blinked, once, slow and painful, expecting the hallucination to fade. He had seen this ghost a thousand times in the last fourteen days. He had seen Jason in the shadows of the cave, in the reflection of the window, in the empty chair at the table.

But the ghost didn't fade. The ghost smiled.

It was a small, crooked, uncertain smile. The smile of a boy who had broken a vase and was waiting to see if he was in trouble.

"Hey, Dad," Jason croaked.

The sound of that voice—the voice Bruce had last heard screaming in terror on a tape recording the Joker had sent him—shattered the last of Bruce Wayne’s composure.

Bruce made a sound that wasn't human. It was a strangled, high-pitched gasp, like a man who had been underwater for an hour suddenly breaking the surface.

"Jason?" he whispered. The word was barely air.

Jason’s smile wobbled. The bravado dropped. The twelve-year-old boy who had woken up in a coffin and fought his way out of hell suddenly just wanted his father.

"I knew you'd come," Jason said, his voice trembling. "I heard you screaming. In the warehouse. I knew you wouldn't let me die."

He took a step forward.

"I knew you'd save me, Dad."

Bruce didn't walk. He fell forward. He scrambled across the room, colliding with Jason in a desperate, frantic tackle that nearly knocked them both over.

He dropped to his knees, wrapping his arms around Jason’s waist, burying his face in the boy’s dirty stomach.

"Jason," Bruce sobbed, the dam breaking completely. "Jason, Jason, Jason."

He was clutching him so tight that Clark worried for a second about Jason’s newly healed ribs, but Jason didn't complain. He wrapped his arms around Bruce’s shaking shoulders, resting his chin on his father’s head.

"I'm okay, B," Jason soothed, patting Bruce’s hair. "I'm okay. Papa fixed me. The ice robot fixed me."

Bruce pulled back, his hands framing Jason’s face. He ran his thumbs over the boy’s cheeks, checking for warmth, for a pulse, for the reality of skin and bone. He smeared the graveyard mud on Jason’s cheek, but he didn't care.

"I'm sorry," Bruce wept, the tears flowing freely into his beard. "I'm so sorry, Lad. I was too late. I was so late."

"Nuh-uh," Jason shook his head stubbornly. "You got me out. I remember. You and Papa."

Bruce froze. He looked up at Clark.

His eyes were red, swollen, and filled with a confusion so profound it looked like physical pain. He looked at the mud on Clark’s boots. He looked at the exhaustion etched into the Kryptonian’s face.

He realized, with the sharp, deductive mind of the World’s Greatest Detective, that he hadn't saved anyone.

Clark had.

"Clark?" Bruce asked, his voice raw. "How...?"

Clark opened his mouth to explain. He wanted to tell him about the heartbeat in the grave, the digging, the flight to the Arctic.

But before he could speak, the bundle in his right arm moved.

WAAAAAAH!

The sound cut through the emotional reunion like a siren. It was loud, angry, and undeniably the sound of a very unhappy infant.

The room went dead silent.

Bruce stiffened. The tears stopped instantly. The Detective snapped back into place, overriding the grieving father for a split second.

He looked at Clark’s arms.

Dick looked.

Tim looked.

Alfred, who was picking up tea cup shards, stopped and stared at the bundle in Clark’s arm once more.

The bundle shifted. A tiny, furious fist punched its way out of the red fabric. Then a face appeared—red, scowling, and topped with a tuft of black hair.

Jason-proclaimed—Damian Wayne, heir to the Demon, son of the Bat, blinked his eyes open and glared at the room. He looked at Bruce.

Bruce looked at the baby. He looked at the black hair. He looked at the familiar scowl.

He looked up at Clark.

The silence stretched out, long and terrible.

"Clark," Bruce said, his voice dangerously calm. "Why is there a baby in your arms?"

Clark flinched. He looked down at Damian, then up at Bruce, then over at Jason.

He realized there was no good way to say this. There was no soft landing for this particular truth bomb.

So, he did the only thing a panic-stricken husband could do.

"I didn't steal him," Clark blurted out, pointing an accusing finger at the boy Bruce was currently hugging.

"Jason did."

"I didn't steal him," Jason repeated, the defiance in his voice cracking under the weight of exhaustion. He swayed slightly, his grip on the flannel shirt tightening. "I liberated Damian. There were ninjas, B. And a glowing green hot tub. You can't raise a baby in a ninja factory. It’s a health code violation."

Bruce stared at him, the cognitive dissonance playing out across his haggard features. He looked from the defiant, resurrected twelve-year-old to the scowling infant in Superman’s arms.

"A ninja factory," Bruce repeated, the words feeling foreign in his mouth.

"And he’s your kid!" Jason blurted out, his eyes drooping. "He has your judgy face. Look at him. He’s judging the wallpaper right now."

Before Bruce could process the concept of a biological son he hadn't known existed, the manic energy that had sustained Jason since the Lazarus Pit finally evaporated. The strings cut. Jason’s knees buckled, his eyes rolling back in his head as the adrenaline crash hit him like a freight train.

"Jay!" Dick lunged, catching his brother before he hit the floor.

"I got him," Dick gasped, sliding down to cradle Jason’s head in his lap. "I got him. He’s burning up, Clark. Is he okay?"

"He’s okay," Clark said gently, though his own arms were full of the squirming infant. "He’s just exhausted. His body has been through... a lot. He needs sleep. Real sleep."

The baby, sensing the shift in tension or perhaps just annoyed by the lack of attention, let out another sharp, demanding wail.

Alfred stepped forward. The shock had vanished from his posture, replaced by the terrifying efficiency of a man who had raised three generations of Waynes. He extended his arms.

"I shall take Master Damian, sir," Alfred said, his voice steady.

Clark hesitated, looking at the tiny, angry creature. "Alfred, he’s hungry. He hasn't eaten in... well, I don't know how long. We don't have—"

"I have a tin of formula in the pantry, Master Clark," Alfred interrupted smoothly.

Clark blinked. "You do?"

"I have kept a supply of emergency infant formula, diapers, and pediatric antihistamines since Master Dick was sixteen," Alfred said, lifting the baby from Clark’s cape with practiced ease. "Given this family’s propensity for attracting strays, I found it prudent to be prepared for literally anything. It appears, once again, that pessimism was merely foresight."

Damian settled instantly in the butler’s arms, as if recognizing a superior authority.

"Master Dick, Master Tim," Alfred commanded, turning toward the kitchen. "Take Master Jason to the Master Bedroom. It is the largest bed. I shall join you shortly with the bottle and Master Damian."

Dick nodded, hoisting Jason’s limp form into his arms. The boy was light—too light—but Dick carried him like he was made of gold. Tim grabbed onto the back of Dick’s shirt, refusing to be separated from the convoy.

They shuffled out of the room, leaving the two fathers alone in the wreckage of the drawing room.

The silence that followed was heavy, filled with the dust of the grave and the unspoken words of two weeks.

Bruce stood in the center of the room, his hands hanging uselessly at his sides. He looked at the empty doorway where his sons had disappeared, then he turned his gaze to Clark.

He looked at the mud caked on Clark’s boots. He looked at the dirt smeared across the S-shield. He looked at the raw, red skin of Clark’s hands, where he had scrubbed them in the Fortress until they bled.

"You dug him up," Bruce whispered. It wasn't a question.

Clark flinched. He walked over to the sofa and collapsed, the physical toll of the rescue finally catching up to his invulnerability.

"I went to say goodbye," Clark said, his voice rough. "I was just... I was standing there, Bruce. I was apologizing to him…for everything. And then I heard it."

He looked up at Bruce, his blue eyes swimming with unshed tears.

"I heard his heart. It was so faint. It was... god, Bruce, there was scratching. He was scratching at the lid."

Bruce paled, the blood draining from his face until he looked like the corpse Jason had ceased to be. He swayed, reaching out to grip the back of a chair.

"He was alive," Bruce choked out. "We buried him alive. I buried him."

"We didn't know," Clark said fiercely, standing up to bridge the distance between them. He reached out, gripping Bruce’s shoulders, grounding him. "We couldn't have known. It was a one-in-a-billion chance. A random firing of synapses, or... or a miracle. But I heard him. I dug him out. I took him to Jor-El."

"You saved him," Bruce said, his voice breaking. "I was sitting here in the dark, feeling sorry for myself, and you were... you were tearing the earth apart with your bare hands."

"I promised I'd always listen," Clark whispered. "I'm listening now."

Bruce looked at him. Really looked at him. He saw the husband he had pushed away. He saw the partner he had punched in the face at the UN Plaza.

The anger about the Joker—the diplomatic immunity, the fact that the clown was still breathing while Jason had been in the ground—was still there. It was a jagged shard of glass in Bruce’s chest that wouldn't dissolve overnight.

But as he looked at Clark, covered in the filth of Jason’s grave, shaking from the trauma of the rescue, the distance between them evaporated.

"I'm not okay," Bruce admitted, his voice trembling. "I'm not okay with what happened at the UN. I don't know when I will be."

"I know," Clark said softly.

"But," Bruce stepped closer, his hands coming up to cup Clark’s muddy face, his thumbs brushing away a streak of dirt. "You brought him back to me. You brought our son home."

He leaned in, pressing his forehead against Clark’s.

"Thank you," Bruce breathed. "Thank you, Kal-El."

He kissed him.

It wasn't a passionate kiss. It was a desperate collision of grief and relief, salt tears and grave soil. It was a seal on a promise that they would figure the rest out later, because right now, they were alive.

“Now what was this about ninjas?”

Clark froze.

Clark felt it happen beneath his hands, the sudden shift from husband to detective, from grieving father to the man who could hear one wrong word in a room full of miracles and build an entire case file around it.

Bruce pulled back just enough to look at him.

“Clark,” he said slowly.

Clark closed his eyes.

“No.”

“Clark.”

“Can we do this upstairs?”

“Jason just asked about ninjas,” Bruce said, still quiet in that horribly controlled way that meant he was one answer away from dressing in kevlar. His gaze flicked toward the ceiling, toward where Alfred had taken Jason, toward the impossible second heartbeat now resting in their house. “And there is a baby in my home.”

“Our home,” Clark corrected automatically, because apparently survival instinct had abandoned him sometime between digging their son out of his grave and discovering that said son had committed infant theft from an international assassination cult.

Bruce stared at him.

Clark swallowed.

“Right,” he said weakly. “Not the point.”

“No,” Bruce agreed. “Not the point.”

For one terrible, suspended moment, Clark could not make the words come. He could still feel Jason’s weight in his arms. First cold and wrong and barely breathing in the graveyard. Then warm and alive and sleepy at the ice cream stand. Then gone.

Gone again.

His throat closed around it.

Bruce saw it. Of course Bruce saw it. The sharpness in his face faltered, replaced by something far more frightening. Understanding.

“Clark,” he said, softer now.

“I lost him,” Clark whispered.

Bruce went very still.

Clark shook his head, frantic before Bruce could misunderstand. “Not for long. Not forever. I found him. I found him, Bruce, I did, but I—” His voice broke. “I got him out of the ground. I took him to the Fortress. Jor-El healed him. He was hungry, and he wanted ice cream, and I thought—God, I thought he was safe for three minutes.”

Bruce’s hand tightened around his.

“Three minutes,” Clark said, staring at the place where their fingers were tangled together. “I turned around to buy him mint chip with sprinkles, and when I looked back, he was gone. They took him. The League took him.”

A muscle jumped in Bruce’s jaw.

Clark braced himself for fury. For blame. For the clean, surgical cruelty of Batman’s grief finding a target it could survive striking.

Instead, Bruce inhaled once, raggedly.

“You found him,” he said.

Clark looked up.

Bruce’s eyes were wet again, but his voice held. Barely. “You found him twice.”

“That doesn’t make it better.”

“No,” Bruce said. His thumb dragged once over Clark’s knuckles, grounding them both. “But it means he’s upstairs.”

Clark made a broken sound.

Bruce stepped closer again, pressing their foreheads together for one breath, two. “Tell me the rest.”

Clark let out a laugh that had no humor in it. “He thought they had Dick.”

Bruce blinked.

“He heard them talking about the Detective’s heir. And a D-name. He thought it was Dick, so he broke out of his cell, found a Lazarus Pit—”

“Clark!”

“Later,” Clark said quickly. “Please let that be later.”

Bruce’s expression promised that nothing involving the words Lazarus and Pit would be later for very long.

Clark continued anyway. “He found the nursery instead.”

“The nursery.”

“Yes.”

“In an League stronghold.”

“Yes.”

“And Damian?”

Clark glanced toward the ceiling again. His face did something helpless and unbearably fond despite everything. “Jason decided assassins were not suitable guardians.”

Bruce stared at him.

“He said it was big brother rules.”

For a second, there was nothing. No breath. No sound. No movement except the minute tremor running through Clark’s hand.

Then Bruce looked down.

A laugh escaped him.

It was not a happy sound. It was not even a whole sound. It was cracked and exhausted and dangerously close to becoming a sob, but it was a laugh. Clark stared at him like he had just witnessed a third miracle.

“Big brother rules,” Bruce repeated faintly.

“That’s what he said.”

Bruce covered his eyes with his free hand. His shoulders shook once.

Clark, very carefully, said, “I’m sorry.”

Bruce dropped his hand and gave him a look that was pure, wounded disbelief. “For which part? The resurrection? The kidnapping? The Lazarus Pit? The baby acquisition? Or the fact that our twelve-year-old apparently conducted a solo rescue mission from a League fortress while recovering from being dead?”

Clark opened his mouth.

Closed it.

“All of it?” he offered.

Bruce stared at him for another second.

Then, with the weary, devastated dignity of a man who had exceeded the natural limit of emotional catastrophes before breakfast, he said, “You are officially demoted.”

Clark blinked. “Demoted?”

“From supervising the children by yourself.”

Despite everything, despite the grave soil still drying on his suit, despite the terror sitting like broken glass under his ribs, Clark almost smiled. “That seems fair.”

“It isn’t enough, actually.” Bruce’s voice was hoarse, but there was something alive underneath it now. Something brittle and human and trying. “I’m going to have to find someone to supervise all of you.”

“All of us?”

“All of my children,” Bruce said, eyes flicking toward the ceiling again, “and you.”

Clark’s mouth trembled.

“Especially you,” Bruce added.

“That also seems fair.”

Bruce squeezed his hand.

For a moment, they stood there in the ruined quiet of the study, surrounded by mud and grief and impossible heartbeats. Upstairs, their dead son was alive. Their eldest was on his way home. Their newest child was asleep under Alfred’s supervision, stolen out of the hands of assassins by a boy who had apparently decided death was not a sufficient excuse to stop being Robin.

Bruce let out a slow breath.

“Come on,” he whispered, pulling back but keeping his hand in Clark’s. “Let’s go upstairs.”

Then, after a pause, quieter and almost helplessly fond, he added, “Before Jason adopts anyone else.”

They walked up the grand staircase together, the silence of the Manor now feeling peaceful rather than oppressive.

When they pushed open the door to their bedroom, the sight that greeted them stopped Clark in his tracks.

The massive king-sized bed—reinforced years ago to withstand Kryptonian density—was occupied.

Jason was in the center, buried under a mountain of duvets, still wearing the oversized flannel shirt. He was fast asleep, his mouth open, looking younger than he had in years.

Dick was curled around him on the left, his arm thrown protectively over Jason’s chest, his face pressed into the pillow next to Jason’s shoulder. He was out cold, fully dressed in his sweatpants.

Tim was on the right, curled into a small ball against Jason’s side, clutching a pillow.

And at the foot of the bed, nestled in a makeshift nest of pillows that Alfred had clearly constructed, was Damian. The baby was clean (at least one of the kids was), fed, and sleeping soundly, a tiny knit cap covering his head.

Clark’s breath caught, and then, impossibly, a smile softened the wreckage of his face.

“They saved us a place,” he whispered.

Bruce looked at the bed—the mountain of duvets, the tangle of sleeping boys, Jason breathing steadily in the center of it all—and something in him broke gentler this time.

“Then we shouldn’t keep them waiting,” he murmured.

He didn't hesitate. Bruce Wayne, Batman, kicked off his slippers and climbed onto the bed. He settled on the far side, next to Dick, pulling the duvet up.

Clark toed off his muddy boots, leaving them by the door. He stripped off his ruined outer shirt, leaving him in his undershirt, and climbed in on the other side, next to Tim.

He reached out, his arm spanning the length of the bed, his hand finding Bruce’s hand over the tangle of their sons.

Bruce squeezed his fingers.

The wind howled outside Gotham, and the Joker was still alive, and the League of Assassins would eventually come looking for their heir.

But in the center of the bed, surrounded by the rhythmic breathing of four boys and the steady heartbeat of his husband, Clark Kent finally closed his eyes.

They were home.