The Boy king and The Dark Knights

XI

BRUCE WAYNE'S feelings were torn.

Embarrassment or concern, that was the debate.

Embarrassment over the fact that some random kid had hit him so hard he was sent flying into a dumpster, or concern over the stiffness of the boys body, and the way his eyes were wide in fear.

As none of his sons were around to see what had just occurred to the Bat, he settled on concern.

He slowly pushed himself up, watching the kid take two quick steps back.

“Why did you hurt that man?” Bruce asked.

The kid looked confused for a second, before his eyes landed on the man on the floor and his mouth made a small o of realization.

“I wasn’t just going buck-wild on him for no reason, I might have gone like a bit overboard but he was hurting a literal puppy so I think I was mostly justified and-“

“If you have a good reason for what you are doing, why are you so scared of me?” The boy flinched.

“I’m not scared.” The boy scowled at him, and Bruce was vaguely reminded of another boy with black hair and blue eyes who had attacked him in Crime Alley.

Bruce took a step forward, and the kid hopped two steps back, before pausing and blinking at him.

“Ok maybe I’m a bit scared.” The kid stated. “But I’m completely justified here! You’re a part of the Justice league, and y’all are like, super strong! Plus you’re like super anti-meta about Gotham and I-“ The kids stopped suddenly, before redirecting. “Um. That’s not very nice to metas and stuff. Not that I’m one. Or anything.”

So the kid was a meta. Not that punching a grown man so hard his feet left the ground gave that away or anything.

“Why is a meta like you fighting crime if you’re scared of me?” Bruce asked.

“I’m not a meta. And I can’t fight dead people right now, so I’m fighting not-dead people.” The kid shrugged.

“Why do you need to fight people?” Bruce was ignoring the dead-people thing for now. He was good at staying on task like that.

“Isn’t that question a big hypocritical Mr. Justice League?”

“I’m an adult. You can’t be more than ten.”

“Regardless of age, I’m sure our reasons are similar enough.”