Almost a Member of the Family

-I thought of an alternative to "Soon-to-be-stepfamily", and thought I'd write it out :)-

-EDIT: Deleted and changed the end cause I didn't like it.-


"Bruce, is everything okay?" Clark asked.

"Fine." It wasn't Batman level, but it was a standard you-don't-know-why-I'm-mad-at-you answer you might come to expect from Bruce Wayne.

"...Are you sure?" Clark knew things weren't fine, but Bruce was going to keep giving him the cold shoulder until he finally guessed what he'd done. It was definitely something he did. 

Whenever Clark messed up, Bruce just waited until he figured it out and came crawling for forgiveness. I guess being a billionaire your whole life will lead to Diva behaviour, even without the emotional repression.

"Everything's fine." Bruce said coldly. The two of them were supposed to be having a night out without Bruce's boys, but the bat had been bitter all night.

"Will you please tell me what I did?" Clark begged. "Is it because I almost called you Bruce while we were working?" He tried to gauge Bruce's reaction, but the bat was still stone-faced and unimpressed. 
"Did I say something earlier? Give me a hint?" He pleaded. "Oh god, did I mix up the boys' names?"

"You're getting warmer."

"It does have to do with the boys? Maybe? Maybe not?" Bruce wasn't doing ANYTHING for him. He just sat there glaring at him, swishing his glass of wine judgementally. Bruce gave one hint, and that was more than enough for him. 
"Bruce, I have a lot of powers, but mind-reading isn't one of them. Please?"

Everyone always says that communication is how relationships work, how had they been dating almost two years?

"You've been mishandling something terribly." Bruce said bitterly. "I'm really not happy with you Clark."

"I'm sorry." The farmboy said, still not sure why he was in the doghouse. "I'm really sorry, Bruce. What did I do?"

Wrong thing to say. Bruce swigging his drink. He noticed their waiter approaching. "Excuse me, can we get the cheque please."

Clark's heart almost burst through his chest. As soon as it was just them, he practically fell to his knees. "Bruce, please! I can't fix this, I need you to tell me what I did so I can stop being an idiot."

Bruce gave him a long bitter look before speaking.

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"Good boy." Conner wrestled the large, half-destroyed Red ball from the dog. He chucked it across the training room, and watched, amused, as the huge beast sprinted after it.
"Can I tell you what happened at school today?" The creature ruffed while holding the rubber ball in his mouth. Conner smiled. "Today was a day one, so we had socials explorations, pre calc..."

"Superboy?"

Conner froze. Wolf tackled him, wanting to keep playing. The super tried to sit up again, he'd thought he was alone in the mountain and had not heard Batman coming.

Conner was a little embarrassed to be caught talking to Wolf.  "What?" He accused.

Batman glared down at him. "I'm adopting you."

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The process of adopting Conner had been surprisingly easy. He wasn't a legal citizen, so all he had to do was list himself as 'father' on Conner's parent contacts at school and ask Alfred shyly if he could bring another dog into the house.

...and then asking Alfred, even shier, if he could bring another child into the house.

The old man took it as well as he could. He was pushing seventy and would kill Bruce if he brought another baby Robin home. Bruce thought telling him that it was not a little kid, but a teenage krytonian with anger issues and a huge pet wolf would ease tensions, but Alfred wasn't pleased.

"He needs a father!" Bruce asked, trying to worm his way onto Alfred's good side. He wanted to shout that the boy even had black hair, blue eyes and daddy issues. He was a perfect fit!
"I know he's different than the others, but I want to adopt him!"

"And when did you transition from hating Superman to wanting to marry him and adopt his underage clone?"

"My love for Clark is unrelated here. Conner has a deadbeat father and needs a home. Clark needs someone show him directly that Conner deserves love."

"Master Bruce, do you want to adopt this boy because you love him, and want to care for him, or because you resent how Master Kent has been treating him."

"What- no. Conner needs a family, and Clark isn't giving him that." The billionaire justified. "If Clark wants to marry me as bad as he did last time he brought up the idea of marriage, then he'll come to terms with parenting his kid."

"So are you trying to adopt this poor boy, or is he merely a pawn or revenge against his would-be father?" Before Bruce could even answer, Alfred added: "What would your other children think of this?"

"Well, he and Dick are already friends." Brice said quickly. "I mean, they work together, so..."

"So it would be like if Ms. Prince came to live with us as your sibling."

"No- It's." Bruce was stuck there.
Damian would be pissed if he took in Conner and Wolf, they'd probably make Tim uncomfortable and Dick would probably have words with his father for adopting one of his teammates when he expressly said not to.

Not to mention that having Jason and Conner in the same house would tear in apart. If they decided they didn't like each other, everyone would suffer.

"Has young master Kent actually shown interest in being adopted?"

"Jason didn't until I adopted him!" Bruce said. That was always his defence against that extremely valid point.

Alfred actually stoppd wiping down the countertops andturned to him. "Does young master Kent have living relatives who could take him in?"

"Clark's folks are too old to take him in, I don't think they know he exists." Bruce recounted, feeling like he might be breaking through to the man. "Kara is too young to raise him- and his second cousin. I think you know about his father."

"and his other father?"

Bruce actually got mad. "I'm not giving him to Luthor!"

"Master Bruce, you cannot 'give him' at all. He is not your child, he can choose to side with his father, even if you don't like it."

I mean, Damian was pissed when he adopted Tim. Tim was uncomfortable when he'd adopted Jason. Dick had yelled at him when he put the team in therapy. and all those things worked out fine. good even.

So obviously, Bruce should ignore everyone's input and adopt the child regardless.

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"Is that it?"

"Him." Bruce corrected. Damian was unimpressed. "say hello." Bruce ordered. 

"Hi." Tim waved a little.

"Hey" Jason said. "get a new shirt."

"Hi Conner." Dick sighed.

The clone was relived to recognize his teammate, this was a lot to process. He didn't know what was happening at all! He gripped Wolf's leash. "What's happening?"

"You're Bruce's newest victim." Jason said.

Dick elbowed him. "He doesn't understand sarcasm, idiot." Dick said. "Sorry, Bruce has a thing for adopting sad kids." He almost sounded embarrassed by his dad's antics. He wanted to apologize for Bruce trying to adopt his friend.

"Do you know what kind of animal that is?" Damian ordered. 

"He's a Makenzie Valley Wolf." Conner said. "He was just grown with Kobra Venom."
Damian hurried to Wolf,  disconnected the leash, and began examining the beast. "HEY! Don't Touch Him!" Conner ordered. 

Wolf let out a growl and pressed against the Clone's side, he could tell Conner was upset and confused. 

"Conner's still new here, everyone introduce yourselves." Bruce ordered.

"Well, me and Conner know each other. I'm Dick, obviously." The youngest sighed again. "Conner, I'm sorry he's adopting you. He can't legally do it. You can go if you want."

"Dick." Bruce said seriously, he was trying to bring home another child, why where they being so rough? "Conner will be staying with us for a while, so you four better behave yourselves. We talked about this earlier."

Well now Conner felt like he was being used to torture them. He should be happy that he's being given a family, but he felt like he was being dragged along. Why was Batman adopting him? Why were all his sons acting like he needed to run. Did he need to run? He gladly would.

"Well, Conner, let's find your bedroom." One of the boys said. "I'm Tim, by the way."

"Okay." He said, gripping his bag's strap with one hand, and Wolf's leash with the other.

"Why doesn't Damian take Wolf down to meet Titus and Ace?" Bruce asked. "Our other dogs." 

Conner nearly ripped Wolf's leash from gripping it too hard. He clearly didn't want to be separated from his dog. 

"Don't worry about Wolf. Damian's an animal lover." Dick said. "C'mon, I'll take you up with Tim."

Damian unclipped the leash from Wolf's super-sized harness. The beast wanted to stick by his side, and Conner wanted to stick by Wolf's side. The bats reluctantly let the dog go with him. 

"Bruce said you can have this one." Tim told him, pushing open a door to a bedroom. There was a made bed, a dresser and a large window. "Dick's bedroom is right there across the hall, and my room is next door."

"Do you all live here?" 

"Tim's in Uni." Dick explained. "Damian just comes back to visit every once in a while."

"I just stay here on breaks." Tim said. "Jason's room is on your other side, Demon's room is down there."

All three of them went silent. "So is he really adopting me?"

"I guess." Dick shrugged. "But hey, it's not that bad here. We get to patrol every night, Alfred's a great cook and you can still be on the team."

"Who's Alfred?"

"Our butler/nanny/matriarch. He's the only person who keeps us alive." Tim replied. "You'll get to know him."

Conner stood there in discomfort. "Batman's dating Superman, isn't he?"

"Yeah." Dick muttered. "Hey, let's introduce you to Alfred."

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Damian stood next to Superboy, watching the dogs. Conner had to go with Wolf to meet the other animals. This wasn't horrible, though. Conner lavished his attachment issues on animals, he grew to love him. 

Damian watched him whistle to the dogs affectionately. It felt like standing next to his own nine-year-old self. If Damian wasn't Damian, he'd be hugging the kid. So, how come Damian WAS Damian and had his arms wrapped around the super's shoulders.

"What are you doing?" Superboy ordered, trying to squirm loose. Damian wasn't sure what he was doing, he didn't have an answer yet, so he just kept hugging the boy.
"Stop it!" The teen ordered. He super strength was no match for Damian's emotional trauma.

"Father is having- your father over again tonight. Knowing him he'll flaunt you to make Kent- your father angry."

"Damian!" Dick exclaimed, embarrassed. "LET GO OF HIM!" Conner was his friend/teammate. Why were his brothers so weird!? 

I mean, I guess Conner's his brother too, now. He wasn't sure how he felt there. He liked Conner, but it was weird.

"Just be strong tonight." Damian warned the boy, not realizing that this was the same thing his inexperienced nine year old self would say.

"I don't need you to tell me to be strong." Conner growled. 

"I'm trying to help you."

"Oookay." Dick cut between them. It had been a day and a half, and he didn't want everyone fighting. "We've got you. We can throw Clark out if you want."

Conner frowned. "His name is Clark?"

The bats locked eyes. yikes. They had a lot of work to do.

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"Hey babe." His farm boy kissed his cheeks. "I'm sorry for whatever I did on Thursday."

"It's fine, I resolved it." Bruce lead him into the house. "The boys are here for dinner, but they're on patrol tonight..."

"And you have plans?"

"I'll let you decide that." Bruce said seriously, guiding his boyfriend into the living room. "Boys?"

There were a few things Clark noticed: Damian and Dick were conversing (Gossiping) in the corner, Tim was on his phone and Jason was playing with a HUGE dog. Crazy big. Must be a new pet of Damian's.

Then he finally saw it: Standing in the corner, staring at the other boys with an air or either jealousy or fear. 

"Bruce, what is he doing here?" Clark hissed

Bruce glared at his boyfriend. "I'm adopting Conner."

"Why?"

"Because he needs a family." He growled. "If you're still interested in marriage, you'll have to get closer to Conner."

So that's why Bruce was so mad on Thursday!

"Can we talk? In privet."

"We can, but at your request, I freed the manor of Kryptonite, so Conner will probably hear us." Bruce replied. "So, do you have anything to say?"

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