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He’s been watching the man pretend to be drunk for about half an hour now, making a fool of himself for all the Elite to see. He had two beautiful models on each arm hanging off of him to serve as eye candy—or, as he tried to make it seem, being used to support his unsteady weight.

So far, in the night, Wayne had ingested a couple shrimps, water, five glasses of different juices and not a single drop of alcohol. When the man started to act out, speak sluggishly and lose balance, Clark had become slightly worried that someone had spiked his drink, but there was not a single chemical tang in any of the drinks—alcohol, sedatives, poison or otherwise—that Clark’s nose picked up on.

It was a bit disconcerting, to say the least, to know that the man that just ten minutes ago walked face-first into a (very big and very visible) marble pillar was stone-cold sober.

That alone meant Clark didn’t have such a high opinion of Wayne; this whole charade of his of playing dumb could just be a desperate cry for attention, or a business move to be underestimated by opponents. Whatever. It wasn’t any of Clark’s business what a billionaire playboy with no serious scandals did to have fun.

What really caught his attention, on the other hand, was how calm and controlled the man was even while lying through his teeth. There was no acceleration in heartbeat, no hitch in breath, no spike in cortisol or adrenaline scent, not even the minute fluctuations in temperature humans usually experienced when embarrassed, excited, angry, or put on the spot.

Clark refuses to use his X-ray vision to check if the man’s blood really was flowing to his downtown are as he led the women around him to believe he was as excited as he said.

A woman—not either of the models he was with—touched his chest flirtatiously and Wayne gave her a lazy smile that probably looked devastatingly charming to anyone without microscopic vision. No reaction. One of the few males surrounding Wayne insulted him jokingly to his face. No reaction. Bruce’s son (Clark had no idea which one, and it felt wrong to take on Lois’ advice on referring to Wayne’s many children as numbers) immediately jabbed a finger in the man’s chest to (very aggressively) defend his father’s honor, positively assassinating the good mood in a ten meter ratio as Wayne had to talk his ward into not escalating the situation even more. No. Reaction.

Clark frowned faintly into his champagne flute. It was kind of very creepy how even his heart was steady, Clark had honestly never seen such an unwavering blood flow in a human, not even Lex Luthor could pull off such bullshit without even the slightest change in his body as a giveaway.

Clark looked away after a while, suddenly uncomfortable with how long he’d been observing the man. He could almost hear Batman’s voice in the back of his mind telling him to stop sticking his nose in Gotham’s business. And he would comply to his friend’s wishes.

Put whatever baby is crying or throwing a tantrum in his arms and they will immediately calm down, looking into the cowl with big owl eyes. Some even start giggling adorably at the stone-faced hero, to the confusion of the police officers and first responders.

At first they thought of taking the baby back before Batman lashed out accaidentaly and hurt the fragile thing but the guy just extended a gloved finger to the kid's face and let them play with it until help arrived.

And it's as normal as Gotham can be they think, babies must sense his good faith or pure soul or whatever it's behind those black-rimmed eyes.

So they let it be.

What they find strange however is how Bruce "resident reclusive billionaire" Wayne somehow has the same effect on them, (on the rare occasions he goes out to take the Sun, which is not a lot in Gotham, per orders from Alfred).

He looks like a wet cat.

Always carries that frown and downturn lips.

And seems on the verge of crying when people get closer to talk to him.

But when you put a baby in his arms it's like a switch has been flipped; his cold icy blue eyes melt into soft glaciers; his face looks younger, less tense by grief and anxiety; and they have never heard him talk more than when he was commenting his latest charity event with a three year old who had lost his parents in a gala.

It's quite endearing.

They assume that Batman has been teaching the Wayne heir the ropes of handling a kid.

And when three years later the latter announces that he has adopted a new ward, nobody is really surprised, but they suspect that the father is Batman.