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2023-06-11
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Controlling the temperature

Summary:

Batman was one of the only baseline humans in the Justice League, everyone knew that. He didn’t have any special powers, he had his training and his brain, but that was it. And it was amazing that he had become a hero or vigilante with only that.

If only that was the truth. Batman was a metahuman, he didn’t really use his powers all that much, but that didn’t change his status. He had powers, he didn’t have them in the start, but he had them now. However, nobody seemed to notice them.

Notes:

Thank you all for reading, hope you enjoy!

Work Text:

Batman was a normal human, that much was agreed upon by most people. Most of the Justice League was sure of it anyway. Or as normal as you can get, when you choose to dress up as a bat to fight crime.

The few that thought he wasn’t normal, those that thought he was a meta or another creature. They thought he had shadow powers, or could teleport, or read thoughts (he beat people up for information, why would he do that if he could read their minds?). They thought he was a vampire or a demon, thought he had “dark” powers.

None of that was true however, he wasn’t normal - wasn’t a baseline human. But he didn’t have any of the powers they spoke about either, wasn’t any of the creatures they spoke of.

He had made a cure for vampirism for gods sake, why would he be a vampire?

He was a metahuman however, he hadn’t been when he started out as Batman, but then the particle accelerator exploded.

He was in Central City when it happened, and he changed that day.

Suddenly he had powers, Batman wasn’t meant to have powers. Brucie Wayne would be too stupid to use them. Bruce Wayne practiced with them, he had to be able to control them completely - make sure there weren’t any slipups.

He didn’t tell anyone about it, Alfred knew of course - it was hard to hide the first time he burned his bed down. He had a nightmare, and he woke up to it burning.

He had learned to control it better since then - both the cold and the warmth. Had learned to control it before he got his first kid - before Dick moved into the manor.

And he did use it as Batman, just not in an obvious way. He used it to keep himself warm or cold - depending on the season. It came naturally to him; it was something he didn’t have to think about.

One thing he didn’t have to worry Alfred about.

So, he did use it, and if his shoes sometimes melted through the ice, when he was fighting Mr. Freeze or Penguin - no one noticed. And Lucius didn’t comment on why the shoes should be made of so heat resistant material.

He probably just thought that Bruce was being paranoid again.

So, he never told anyone; if any of his kids knew - he would be surprised.

It wasn’t like with the Flash for him, he didn’t fall into a coma and woke up changed. His cells didn’t vibrate so quickly, his metabolism didn’t become so fast.

And he succeeded in learning control at the manor, at home. He just spun a tale of a trip overseas, some skiing, and a bit of climbing. “There were some beautiful women!” Brucie told anyone who would listen. And he went into quite a bit of detail, to anyone who didn’t redirect the conversation.

The only thing that really affected him, in day-to-day life, was the temperature thing. He was never too cold, or too hot. It became even rarer for him to get sick; his immune system could use his new power to fight against bacteria and the like even better.

Could make an environment inside himself, that they couldn’t survive. Bruce could survive it however, it was his power, his body had adapted to it.

The power wasn’t useful to his mission however, not in any big way. The power to manipulate temperatures. Alfred said it was because how his temperament ran hot and cold, that that’s why he got it. Bruce himself thought it must be because of how his DNA was structured before, or maybe because he was looking over a project on environmental controls when it happened.

It was one of their efforts to make it possible to continue arable farming, and farming vegetables, even with the global warming.

His power wasn’t useful to Batman. He could make it hot enough, put enough energy into molecules, to make thing spontaneously combust - but he never wanted to burn the city down.

He could make it so cold, make the molecules stand still enough, that water froze to ice - but there were better ways to get across water.

So, his powers weren’t all that useful, he still had them though. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn’t one of the only baseline humans in the League - that would be Green Arrow.

Not that he really needed those powers as Batman, he had worked for years without them.

But it was weird, perhaps a bit wrong, to be spoken about like he was “just” a human, when it wasn’t still the case.

It felt like… Like he was… Maybe he was lying to his teammates…

Even though they had assumed, even though they didn’t notice when he broke some chains with his powers.

They never noticed.

And the powers were useful to keep hidden, when his enemies thought chains had a better chance of holding him than rope, it was useful. Because all metal would shatter, if you just kept alternating between making it cold and hot.

Everything would shatter in the end, and they didn’t know Batman could do that.

And even when someone saw him shatter chains, they just thought he had used some kind of device.

Because Batman wasn’t a meta.

He couldn’t be, could he? There was the rule about “no metas in Gotham”. And the new kid was a meta, Signal was a metahuman, but that was a new thing - an exception.

Batman couldn’t be a metahuman.

Batman was a metahuman.

He just hadn’t told anyone, and only Alfred noticed. Of course, Alfred noticed, but why didn’t anyone else see it?