Chapter Text
Bruce worries at his bottom lip as he stares searchingly into dark, unblinking eyes. The child gazes back, even, sure, and entirely disinterested. He glances back up at Alfred, who beams a smile at the kid as his hands rifle through a large bag that Clark has never seen before.
“What’s that?” Clark peers around Alfred’s elbow, eyes lit with curiosity in a way that has Bruce thinking, not for the first time, that his boyfriend may just be an overgrown puppy.
“The bag?” Bruce tilts his head and arches an eyebrow in the bag’s direction. Three years in, and Clark still doesn’t know how someone’s eyebrows can be so… expressive.
“It’s the emergency child kit, Master Kent.” Alfred responds, voice half-muffled as he holds a pen-light in his mouth, and combs his hands through the child’s hair.
“Alfred, for the last time, please call me Clark- I’m sorry what?”
“Emergency child kit.” Bruce repeats, punctuating each word with a soft pinch to the infant’s cheek. He fishes a lollipop out of his pocket and distracts them, cooing as Alfred covertly draws a blood sample for further analysis in the bat cave.
“Mmh, okay, and this is my sign to clock out. See you in the morning hon’.” Pulling Bruce in towards his chest, Clark is careful to avoid jostling the child as he drops a kiss on Bruce’s lips, then nose. His lover hums in response and Clark thinks, not for the first time, that his being an alien doesn’t even begin to rank in the top five oddities that come with knowing (and loving) Bruce Wayne.
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Despite the slow accumulation of new Wayne family portraits, Bruce still doesn't really know what to do with the gaggle of children that have picked him as their father. Alfred (always patient, always trusting) keeps telling him it'll be instinctual but he tried that with Dick and then Jason, and now Dick's left Gotham , and Jason, he-
He doesn’t talk about that. He can’t . Bruce remembers staring down at an array of fabric swatches, houndstooth, paisley and pinstripe all blurring into one through the haze of tears that he refuses to let fall, and he thinks- he knows that he's meant to be responding to a question, but he can't remember what the funeral director asked and if he opens his mouth he doesn't know what ungodly sound will escape-
He has to do better. He decides there’s no other option, because the alternative is too painful to bear, and so Bruce reads and reads and reads, whatever he can get his hands on. Self-help guides to parenting, peer-reviewed papers, theses developed by social workers; anything that'll help him understand where he went wrong .
Somewhere along the line, Bruce becomes obsessed. It was to be expected, he supposes to a disgruntled Clark one night, when he bats away his boyfriend’s suggestively wandering hands in favor of highlighting a recent case study’s methodological limitations.
“I’m not really a man of moderation, babe. I wear a bat costume most nights, this is rather tame.”
“You’ve replaced my bedside table with a stack of parenting books, Bruce!”
“Functionally, It does the same job, though?” Bruce bats his lashes in an obvious show of faux-naivety, and Clark hates that his traitorous heart melts in an instant. He grumbles to himself as he prepares for the long haul and gets comfortable, tucking his head against Bruce’s side, nudging insistently until Bruce acquiesces and lifts his hand to begin running his fingers lightly through his partner’s hair.