Chapter 3
The group soon emerged through another door into a hallway lined with portraits. Steve let out a low whistle at the extravagant sight and Tony raised an eyebrow, muttering something under his breath about senators. Jason rolled his eyes and answered, “Yeah, Bruce’s interior design style is old as shit.”
Then he led them down the hallway towards where Steve could hear voices talking over one another, laughing and arguing. They soon reached a massive kitchen, where at least a dozen people were gathered around a huge round table. Steve recognized Bat-Bruce, Dick, Tim, and Damian, as well as Batgirl and Spoiler, but the rest of the group was new to him. He couldn’t help but note that nearly everyone in the group had either black or red hair, with Spoiler as the only exception, and, in the back of his mind, he wondered if they were all related. Jason moved to stand beside Tim, pressing a kiss to Tim’s head, then called, “We’ve got company.”
All at once, the entire group fell silent and turned to stare at the Avengers in eerie unison, making Steve consider, just for a moment, the possibility of them being a hivemind. Then one of the women, a beautiful woman with long black hair and a very sparkly necklace, leaned over to a woman in a wheelchair with long red hair and muttered, not as quietly as she probably intended, “I’ve always preferred dark hair, but mee-ow. I’m starting to think I could learn to like blonde.”
Steve felt heat creep up his neck and Natasha snickered as Bat-Bruce sighed heavily, sounding tired as he asked, “Please behave yourself, Selina.”
The woman, Selina, rolled her eyes and patted Bat-Bruce’s shoulder, teasing, “Never have, never will, handsome. Besides, do you know how hard it is to find someone with a build like yours? Gotta take every opportunity I get.”
Jason snorted, flicking something at Selina, and shot back, “Cry us a river, crazy cat lady.”
A few seats down from Selina, next to Dick, a teenaged boy who was dressed in a bright yellow hoodie like the one Peter was wearing looked over at the Avengers, then advised, “I’d run while you still can. Spend too much time with these nutcases and they’ll drag you into their crazy and then you’ll get too used to it and you’ll never get out.”
Dick laughed, throwing one arm around the teen’s shoulders, and cheerily answered, “Aww, c’mon, Duke. We’re not that bad, are we?”
The teen, Duke, raised one eyebrow in a judgmental expression to rival Nat’s before replying, “I think the fact that we have a ‘Days since Someone Got Stabbed’ counter on the fridge that hasn’t reached double digits in at least two years is a pretty good answer to that question, Mr. Swings-On-Chandeliers.”
Dick laughed and Duke’s deadpan expression broke into a smile. Finally, Tim cleared his throat and introduced, “Everyone, this is Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Natasha Romanoff, and Clint Barton. They’re heroes from an alternate universe that I got thrown into a few months back.”
He took a deep breath, then continued, “Avengers, this is some of our world’s heroes. Like. A handful. So. Here we go. Clark Kent, Superman and Bruce’s boyfriend. Conner Kent, Superboy and Clark’s… Son? Yeah, sure, son. Close enough. Selina Kyle, Catwoman, Bruce’s ex-girlfriend and current friend. Barbara Gordon, Oracle, Dick’s girlfriend for some reason even though she can definitely do better.”
Dick gave a noise of protest at that, which Tim summarily ignored as he took another deep breath and continued, “Duke Thomas, The Signal and current holder of the singular brain cell shared amongst the Wayne family, Alfred excluded. Colin Wilkes, Abuse and Damian’s boyfriend. Jon Kent, also Superboy, yes it’s confusing, no I don't have answers, and Clark’s son. Cassandra Cain, Batgirl and my favorite sibling. Stephanie Brown, Spoiler and my ex-girlfriend because she realized that she could do better. Kate Kane, Batwoman, Bruce’s cousin. And, last but most certainly not least, Alfred Pennyworth, the most badass butler I’ve ever met and one of the only two people in this convoluted mess of a family capable of making more than one good life choice a week.”
Steve looked over the group, repeating their names to himself, and a guy about Tim’s age, Conner, asked, “Wait, who’s the second?”
The redhead in the wheelchair, Barbara, raised her hand silently as she took a drink from her mug and Conner nodded, answering, “Yeah, that’s fair. For a minute there I thought Tim was trying to claim that he was the second and I didn’t wanna be the one to have to break the news to him.”
Tim laughed dryly and answered, “I’m well aware that, for all my skills, making good life choices is not one of them.”
“It really, really, really isn’t, dude.”
Tim rolled his eyes as the table devolved back into chattering, then looked over at the Avengers and stated, “You can sit, you know.”
After a moment of hesitation, Peter slid into the empty chair next to Stephanie and started talking with her. Tony dropped into the chair next to Peter and Natasha moved to sit between Tim and Selina. Clint moved to sit on Jason’s other side, leaving Steve standing alone for a minute before he moved to sit beside Clark. Clark gave him a warm smile that Steve couldn’t help but return and Steve asked, “So, uh, Clark, right?”
Clark’s smile grew at that and he answered, “Yep. And you’re Steve, right?”
Steve nodded and they continued chatting for a bit. As the night dragged on, Steve noticed Bat-Bruce slowly leaning against Clark’s side, nodding off. Clark, to his credit, simply wrapped one arm around Bat-Bruce and gently adjusted the man’s head so he didn’t wake up with a crick in his neck. From across the table, Stephanie giggled and Steve heard the click of a camera phone. Steve soon found himself yawning despite himself and, when he looked around the table, he noticed that everyone else had already disappeared, presumably having gone to bed. Clark gave him another smile, then stated, “I can show you to your room if you want.”
Steve yawned again, then answered, “That would be great. Thank you.”
Clark smiled, then gently picked Bat-Bruce up in a show of surprising strength. Bat-Bruce jerked awake and, at his grumbled complaints, Clark set him down, keeping one arm around Bat-Bruce’s shoulders and stating, “Give me just a minute to get him up to bed, then I’ll come down and show you to your room.”
As Clark helped Bat-Bruce over to where a pair of crutches were leaned against the wall and then out of the room, Steve made a mental note of the white cast that encased Bat-Bruce’s left leg. He shifted awkwardly, but, to his surprise, he didn’t have to wait long for Clark to return to the kitchen without Bat-Bruce. Clark gave him a smile and gestured for him to follow. As they walked, Steve commented, “You must be pretty strong to be able to lift and carry Bruce. Are you enhanced?”
Clark gave an awkward little laugh, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck, and answered, “I, uh, kinda? I mean, I’m not really… human. I’m an alien.”
Steve opened his mouth, surprise no doubt written all over his face, and Clark blushed, explaining, “I was sent to Earth as a baby, just before Krypton, my home planet, was destroyed. My cousin Kara and I are the only survivors.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry. That’s awful.”
Clark looked a little wistful, but shrugged it off, answering, “It is, but I’m also glad I ended up on Earth.”
An awkward silence filled the air between them and Steve finally asked, “So, uh, Tim mentioned that Conner and Jon are your sons?”
Clark gave another awkward little laugh, then replied, “Jon is, yes. Conner is… a bit more complicated.”
Steve raised an eyebrow curiously and Clark sighed, then explained, “Conner is a clone of me, sort of. This supervillain, Lex Luthor, used my DNA alongside his own to create Conner to use as a weapon against me. After Tim and some of the other teen heroes at the time rescued Conner from the lab he was grown in, I was kind of a jerk to him for awhile because I couldn’t really handle the fact that I had a clone of me mixed with my arch-nemesis’s DNA grown without my consent to be used as a weapon against me, but I eventually got over it. But by that point, my adoptive parents had decided they would raise him as their second son and it was a little too late for me to be his dad, so I’m basically just his older brother. Like I said, it’s complicated.”
Steve opened and closed his mouth a few times before finally asking, as respectfully as possible, “Is cloning a normal occurrence?”
Clark looked thoughtful, which did not bode well, and finally answered, “Yes and no. For most people, no, getting cloned by a supervillain isn’t really normal. In this family, however… Well. Um. It’s not as uncommon as you might expect. I mean, technically speaking, Damian is sort of a clone of Bruce? I mean, in the same way that Kon is a clone of me, that is. Talia al Ghul… She, uh, she drugged Bruce and. Um. Stole some genetic material? And like, half cloned him from that with her own DNA mixed in. And, uh, one of Jason’s friends, Bizarro, is a clone of me who didn’t go as expected. So. Y’know. Not as uncommon as you’d think.”
Steve blinked, mulling that over, and, after a few seconds of silence, joked, “I’m starting to feel a bit out of my depth here.”
Clark patted his shoulder as they reached a door and, sounding entirely sincere, replied, “Don’t worry, you get used to it.”
Then he opened the door to a lavish bedroom and showed Steve in before bidding him goodnight and heading off to wherever he was staying.