#non undertale

Thomas Wayne was forced to join the Court of Owls, to take the place of his late father. Thomas hated it but thought maybe he could work at reforming it from the inside, and was eventually horrified when he discovered a cloning operation, intending the clones to be trained as an elite group of assassins called “Talons”. The clones were not all from the same source, but most of the DNA was taken from members of the Court or their family members. The program started after Thomas joined and he didn’t know they had even taken his DNA in the first place.

Thomas managed to expose the group and was killed for it shortly after, along with his wife and traumatizing an 8-year-old Bruce, but the damage to the Court of Owls was done; most of the clones didn’t make it, as the equipment keeping them alive was damaged, and the few that had been “born” already were either too far gone from brainwashing to be saved (I’ll let you imagine what happened to those ones) or were young enough to be quietly put into the adoption system with no memories of their origin.

Such was the fate of Jack Fenton, cloned from Thomas himself and adopted by a family of ghost hunters. Due to exposure to dark magic, ectoplasm, and other unsavory magic stuff, the pair couldn’t have kids of their own and retired when one of them (not sure who) was disabled due to an injury and they opened Fenton Works to sell the occult items they found and some things they made themselves, from weapons, to protective charms, to herbs and medicines, etc. They adopted Jack when they retired and they gave him as normal of a childhood as could be expected of occultists and former ghost hunters/paranormal investigators. They were always open about Jack’s adoption so he was never ashamed of it, never felt the need to find his “real” parents, but none of them ever knew that he was a clone, either.

After Jack graduated college, he inherited Fenton Works, married Maddie, and had Jazz around the time both of his parents died due to complications stemming from their former life-style. Danny never met them, and Jazz was too young to remember, but Jack told plenty of stories. (This is just to explain their absence in the show, you can keep them alive if you want)

If DNA tested, Danny and Jazz would register as Bruce’s half-siblings. Jack would probably be somewhere between 6 and 8 years younger than Bruce, depending on what ages you feel like using for everyone. Jack being less than 2 years old when Bruce was 8 makes the most sense to me, but your mileage may vary.

Edit to add more random thoughts :D

The Court of Owls was getting a little too big for it's britches, expanding farther and faster than it could maintain, until Thomas gave it a push that knocked over the jenga stack. It was bound to happen eventually. After the implosion, the Court returned to it's roots in the shadows and was just starting to gain traction again when Batman encounters them. One of the surviving Clone Talons may or may not have survived to become influential in the Court by then, writer's choice.

The Court wanted to use clones for the Talons so they could manipulate the DNA and conditions in the fake womb for best results (whatever "best" means to them). After the incident, they went back to stealing orphans and other street kids no one would miss, like they did before they got the cloning tech.