To Raise a Child

Bruce

Who would have said I'd spend my Saturday morning serving the League members kids' breakfast at the League's base? Stupid Superman and his monthly morning meetings.


"Daddy, I don't want any"

I sighed exasperated… Why did Dick have to be such a picky eater?

"I know, chum, but it's what Hal cooked and we really don't have time for me to cook you anything else"

"Then I don't want anything"

I rolled my eyes. Usually I wouldn't let him get away with this, but he had had breakfast at home, so it wasn't that bad. He was just there at the table waiting for his brother and friends instead of waiting for them alone in the living room.

"You don't have to eat then" I replied taking his plate away.

I should already be in the meeting room, but I hadn't liked the idea of letting the kids eat by themselves. Jason hadn't have any breakfast at home because he was still slept when we left. I needed to make sure he ate enough before running off to start playing and exploring with the other Kids. Not that I have any problem with his eating habits, now that I think about it. Just now he was eating pretty well.

But as I was looking at my second son, I couldn't help but notice that Oliver's kid, the little redhead he had taken in, was eating way faster than Jason... And it was not only that it was way faster, it was more the way he did It... Like desperate... He remembered me of Jason the first times he had eaten at the manor after taking him off the streets.

"Can I have more?" The kid looked up and offered me his empty plate. It was a good thing he was… well, a Kid, and didn't notice I was staring at him" Your dad cooks really good" I heard him say to Kyle as I took the empty dish.

"It wasn't that good" was the sincere reply. Jordan was not a really good cook... At least his kid knew it.

Roy, I think that's his name, shrugged.

"It tasted pretty good to me"

Well, that's serious.

"Hey, you have a bruise on your arm" signaled Jason.

Roy looked down to check himself and slowly poked said "bruise"... Only to rub it later.

"It's just dirt"

Now that I look, the entire kid seems to be covered in different layers of dirt. When was the last time Oliver made him take a bath? Or change his clothes, for that matter...

"There you go" I said as I handed him his second plate, just for him to start eating it just as fiercely as the previous one.

"Thanks" he spluttered with his mouth full.

"You're welcome" I hadn't even noticed I had stopped looking at Jason to study this kid.

"Can I have some to take home? We ran out of cereal and bread yesterday"

Just then, Hal entered the base's kitchen to hurry me up.

"Come on, Bruce, the kids ate enough already"

Damn It, Hal...

As we left the kids alone, I couldn't help but voice what I had in mind.

"Have you taken a look at Oliver's kid?"

"What's up with him?" Hal sounded totally oblivious" Was he poking his nose or something?"

"No, Hal" I rolled my eyes. What was wrong with him?" But he was engulfing his food like he hadn't eaten in days... And he's dirty, just as his clothes..."

Now Hal looked a little bit less confused.

"What are you implying?"

"I'm not implying anything..." Lie..." Maybe he just dislikes Ollie's food and he hasn't noticed. You know how distracted he can be... And if it's like that, we should tell him. You know, so his kid doesn't get undernourished" It was a really poor excuse, but I couldn't think about another way to ask him if he was actually taking care of the child.

***

Hal

But there was no time to ask Oliver. Bruce's idea, or so he had told me, was to wait until the meeting was over, but we couldn't finish it before a loud noise outside the room interrupted us.
.
"How come you always do this kind of shit?!" the word automatically had me covering my kid's ears.
Ok, the kids had managed to brake a massive alien ship… But was the language really necessary?

While the other mentors weren't jumping out of happiness, none of us was handling it the same way as Oliver. That last question had been unnecessarily loud, and now all of us were slyly looking at them. The kids, on the other hand, were blatantly looking.

"Wasn't on purpose..." Roy looked at him with a hint of a pout.

"It's never on purpose with you Roy, you always leave a mess everywhere we go!"

"It was an accident!"

"An accident... Didn't I told you not to cause any trouble here?"

"We were just..."

"Didn't I told you?!"

"I didn't do anything!"

But before the kid could go any further, Oliver grabbed his arm and landed three sharp swats on the child's sitspots, leaving us all with our mouths hanging open... Kyle even threw his little hands to cover his scared behind.

"Owww!"

"Behave" Oliver grunted through clenched teeth.

And well, while Roy's only thought seemed to be his sore bottom, the rest of us were astonished. I, for one, would never lay a hand on my kid in public... The people I had heard that has read parenting books say that's not ok to do reprehend them in front of others. Self steem and stuff alike.

After that we all fell silent. We didn't even finish scolding our own kids, we were all really surprised for what had just happened. Not even Bruce would dare hitting his kids in public...
Even after returning to the meeting room, the rest of us felt obviously uncomfortable. The only one who didn't seem to notice the expression on our faces was Oliver himself. He kept on in the meeting like nothing had happened.
.
After the meeting we all decided to take the kids to get ice cream in metropolis, it may be a boring city, but it was also the safest among ours.

Fortunately the kids wanted to ride together and it was Oliver and Clark's turn to take them.

"So, are we going to talk about what just happened?" I finally asked Bruce, Arthur and Barry, who were flying to earth in the same ship as me.

"It's really not any of our business" was Bruce unsure reply.

What?!

"I know he's not my kid, but I just think he shouldn't... I don't know... yell at the boy like that, and even less in front of people"

"I do not know here in Earth, but in Atlantis we believe that behavior can harm a child self steem" apparently Arthur thought the same way.

"We think that too" I replied" And he should be thankful Dinah and Diana are training in Temyscira… They'd have gotten way madder than us. He was just so out of place"

"And who's going to tell him that? Us?"

"Maybe we could be subtle... Like making a protocol, a manual of how to treat your kid to be a healthy sidekick, or something like that"

So Barry was concerned too…

***

Bruce

"Barry, that's just stupid. Like How to Train Your Dragon?" both of them looked at me like I had just spoken in cetaseus" Stop looking at me like that, that damned kids have made me seen the movie like a hundred times... The point is, our friend or not, we can't just condone something like… abuse or something, but we can't intrude either if we just don't like the way he deals with some things"

Maybe I had been the one uncomfortable with the boy's filthy clothes or lack of baths, but we just couldn't intrude in Oliver's life because he had lost his patience with the kids antics. Even I had raised my voice to my children at some point in life. I had never spanked them in public, though...

"But... Look" started Barry now" I'm not saying there's abuse, I mean, I know Ollie would not hurt him on purpose, but..."

"Ok guys, let me explain... what you're implying is that Oliver is not being a good parent, and we can't just accuse him of that without further proof... Come on, you know how he gets when we criticize his cooking, imagine how he'll get if we criticize his parenting just like that... Maybe his not a bad parent, maybe he's just a jerk... Anyways if he's really being that bad then we can talk to him, but we need to make sure before we say anything"

"Ok, then we can wait until then to talk to him, but right now Wally, Kaldur, Kyle, Chris, Dick and Jason are totally traumatized"

I rolled my eyes.

"Barry, you're totally overreacting. Maybe they're not thrilled about the whole situation, but they are fine. Remember that Kyle and Jason are Oliver's fans…" maybe not Green Arrow's, but surely Ollie's" You'll see, when we get there, the children are going to be just as always"