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Batman brings the Justice League through the Zeta tubes to an undisclosed location. It’s a large, enclosed space, probably underground to accommodate the Bat’s aesthetics, filled largely with training mats, a fully stocked weights station, and what looks like a fairly intense obstacle course. Spooky’s brightly colored kids await them in a between space idly. Nightwing waves jovially at the League’s arrival, the Red Hood sardonically, and the others are too busy chatting among themselves to bother with the intergalactic heroes in their presence.
The redheaded woman in a wheelchair is new, but the others Hal recognizes easily enough. They’re all in the same uniforms as the last time he saw them six weeks ago, with the exception that Red Hood is actually in a hood this time, not a helmet. A domino mask obscures his identity like the rest of them, but now in addition to his many distinctive guns, Hal has a skunk dye-job to recognize the man by.
Barry sprints around the edges of the training center and back again. “Where—”
“Irrelevant,” Batman dismisses immediately. “This is a safe training location, specialized for the abilities of each of you.”
Aside from a few invasions—of the apocalyptic variety, not the juvenile—and the odd mission that tied up the League for some time here and there, Hal assumes the specialization of Spooky’s center is the main reason their joint training battle with these Bat brats had to be postponed. Leave it to Batman, though, to make a League-proof training arena in a matter of weeks. Actually—who is he kidding? Dracula probably only had to give his League prison contingency plan an open air design.
Hal tunes back into the Big Bat’s boring lecture once he finally gets to the important part. “We will be sparring for the bulk of today’s training session. Standard protocol for showcase, pairs, and teams. No permanent debilitating injuries, including psychological attacks.”
His children grumble indistinctly and, honestly, Hal has to agree. Batman tends to give instructions like he’s paid by the word; the guy could make a dissertation out of instructions on how to brush your teeth. Even if that was just his orienting summary of the day, there’s no way such a pittance is the end of his spiel. Especially since this is a matter of safety for his children—his children for whom he’s willing to bend League guidelines, at that.
“That can’t be all you wanna say,” Hal demands, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“No,” Batman agrees. “That’s for the children. You all are expected to do your best.”
Pause. “Huh?”
Hal plays back the words in his head, and he knows the others are doing the same. Well—not Diana, because she’s chuckling with delight, and not Clark, because he’s sighing in resignation, but all of the other sane members of the Justice League who have not been indoctrinated or otherwise inoculated against this horrifying Batfamily rear back in full offense and confusion.
The Red Hood is an established criminal of dubious morality and Nightwing is an established vigilante in Gotham’s uglier little sister city Blüdhaven, but the others? They’re still just kids, teenagers at best. Granted, they’re kinda nuts, but that doesn’t justify grown adult heroes with years of experience attacking them, even in a training setting, with nothing but the full intent to win. It would be one thing if they were trying to teach these young Bats something, if they were training for a specific cause, but this—this is an abuse of power.
With all these righteous types in the room, that causes a cacophony of disagreement.
“You can’t be serious!”
“You want us to fight with no holds barred?”
“What happens if we hurt these kids?”
Batman approximates eye contact with Oliver through his cowl and wryly promises, “Then I’ll buy you an ice cream.”
This cannot be the same Batman who wanted to curbstomp Hal for arresting his criminal kid. It can’t be.
It must be, though, because Spooky’s children only laugh. The purple girl raises her hand, waving it around obnoxiously. “And what’ll we get when we win, B?”
Right. They were that cocky, Hal remembers. Okay, so maybe the League can teach them something. Humility is always a good lesson for a big fish in a little pond. Better the Batkids learn it somewhere safe, with heroes who care, than out in the cruel world. While their bratty attitude doesn’t change what needs to be done and how seriously the heroes will take educating them, Hal won’t lie; the satisfaction of winning will be a well-deserved, private joy for the heroes after the fact.
“Don’t lose track of what we’re doing here,” Batman orders, cutting through the League’s discontent and ignoring his child. “Two month—”
There’s no need for him to remind them of his brood’s infiltration of the Watchtower. The lucky few who were out that day have been debriefed so extensively on the matter, it’s almost like they lived it themselves. Hal saves everybody the time and interrupts, “Yeah, yeah, Spooks, we know. Let’s get this show on the road already.”
Batman stares deadeyed at him, ultimately deciding to follow his brilliant lead for once without argument. Hal makes a mental note to grab a cheap pack of gold star stickers to reward the broody bastard with later.
“Lesson one: know your enemy,” Batman announces. “You’ve already failed that, so we’ll move on to lesson two.” He points at the large sparring mat in the center of the room, surrounded by smaller rings and light workout equipment. “Practicals. This will teach you the importance of lesson one.”
Robin calmly leaves the mat once he has shattered Clark’s nose. Signal gives a cheer, high-fiving him. “That’s what we call a hat trick, baby!”
“Man, I miss brawling,” Red Hood sighs wistfully. “Not enough to give up my guns—don’t start, old man—but there really is something so satisfying about crushing bone with your knuckles.”
Oliver shoots Hood a sharp glare—or he would, if J’onn wasn’t actively in the middle of resetting his nose. Red Hood broke it during their spar, the first of this joint training session or, as Oliver is beginning to see it, this public humiliation ritual.
Batman grunted that they would spar in pairs to begin, League versus Bat. Nightwing clarified that spars end when someone taps out either by knocking on the floor or by dripping blood on the mats—apparently someone named Agent A hates to clean blood. Seeing how the Batfamily members are all children, most Leaguers can freely admit to being unsure. Insulted, honestly, as veteran heroes of their calibre treated this way when the young vigilantes could instead use this experience to learn from them and their hardwon wisdom. Worried, mostly, about the ways overconfidence could take them to early graves.
Yes, there was that whole debacle when the heroes arrested Red Hood and his siblings flooded the Watchtower, but the children had the element of surprise on their side then and the League command structure had been in a bit of a disarray. Diana was withholding important information from her team, which affected their performance. So, sure, while the Gotham vigilantes might have made fools of them with their little prank, the League wasn’t serious then. These kids might have been trained by Batman, but they are still just that—kids. Oliver and his teammates are seasoned heroes. Today, they would be in top form, and they were ready to knock these egotistical brats and their mentor down a peg.
And then Red Hood forced Oliver to tap out in under two minutes. And then Signal did the same to Hal. And now Robin has done the same to Clark. To Superman!
In less than ten minutes, with their bare hands, these Batkids took out three Justice League heroes. Hal is still reeling. “He didn’t even use his powers. I think he gave me a concussion. My jaw’s not broken, is it?”
“You’ll be fine,” Oracle, who is apparently not an AI program, consoles. “You’re better off than Supes, at least. Hood, Signal, and Robin all used the exact same maneuver on each of you,” she shows them the video. “I could superimpose them upon one another to make it clearer, but that’s not the point. Think of it like… a trickshot.”
“You mean they were playing HORSE, the shootout game,” Oliver thinks he’s going insane as he seeks clarification, “but instead of using a basketball, they were sparring to try to break our noses?”
“Trying? They did,” Dinah snorts, gently pressing an ice pack over his face.
“I can’t believe I was worried about these brats,” he scoffs.
“You mean underestimating us?” Oracle smirks.
J’onn assures, “The breaks are both clean and easy to set, so that’s good.”
“None of this is good,” Hal grumbles, wiping away his involuntary tears after J’onn snaps his nose back into place.
“You got me there, Lantern,” Oracle huffs. “They shouldn’t have been able to pull off the exact same moves in sequence against opponents who saw it all happen. Arrow is only on the hook for being a one-minute chump, and Lantern for following in his footsteps. Supes, though,” she trails off.
Clark volunteered to go third after the others hesitated. It was an obvious attempt to uplift the League’s spirits. They all could see, however, how much he regretted his actions when the itty-bitty Robin stepped up as his opponent.
Batman sighs, his disappointment not masked in the slightest. “Kal.”
“I should’ve expected the blue kryptonite, that’s fair. But, B, he’s a child—”
“A child who just broke your nose,” Batman dismisses impassively.
“There’s nothing wrong with your big ol’ heart, but don’t let it incapacitate you,” Nightwing grins, patting his shoulder. “That said,” he looks out over the League, “you’re all still looking down on us. You really should know better than that, Big Blue.”
Robin points, “Go fly into the sun, Alien, and heal. You are expected to return.”
“Oracle will input the code in the Zeta to bring you back,” Batman assures, supporting his demon child.
“Will she?” Oracle grumbles under her breath. “You’re not the boss of me.” Oliver watches as she sets everything up regardless.
Ignoring her, Batman turns to the rest of his team, his head tilted and chin jutted in a move reminiscent of a challenge. “Who’s next?”
“Excellent work, Captain,” Alfie smiles kindly at the boy.
It’s so strange to hear him speak in such a vague American accent, but Billy has been part of the Wayne home long enough to know that dramatics are their bread and butter. A masquerade mask is simply not enough for a man like Alfie; he also needs a new accent and a fashionably tardy entrance, extra layers to thoroughly distinguish the man named Alfred Pennyworth from Agent A.
“Thanks, Agent A,” he grins back, still huffing a little bit from exertion.
Billy is tired and sore, but the satisfied kind he’s learned to appreciate recently. Besides, he’s been totally safe from the more intense battles the rest of the Justice League is dealing with now. Unlike the others, not only is Billy still a child, but he’s also not being punished for “improper dealings with the Batfamily.” He gets to train today with exactly zero public humiliation attached. Barry, Hal, and Oliver especially can’t say the same. Clark, too, but he really does it to himself; Superman is just so nice.
After the nose breaking showcase, today’s exercise shifted to the next phase where the Bats, including Bruce, spar one-on-one against the rest of the League, including Billy who also technically counts as both now. B said it’s so everyone can get a sense of what and who they’re working with. They’re all rotating until they’ve battled everyone, League heroes getting one rest/observation slot on account of their uneven numbers. Well, except for Billy. Alfred arrived specially just now to continue his training, like the rest of the Bats.
“You may take a quick break now,” the elderly gentleman gestures. “I will return with light refreshments momentarily.”
Scratch that. Alfie came here to train him and to bring snacks, because he is just the best.
In the three months since his adoption has been made totally official, no takebacks—well, there’s always a chance, but Bruce swore it on the city and family, so Billy believes him as best he can—anyway, in his three months as Billy Batson-Wayne, plus the time before that when everyone first began helping him train, Billy has catalogued all of his new favorite things. Towards the top of the list is obviously Alfie’s cooking. Nothing really beats a home cooked meal.
“How ya holdin’ up, Cap?” Duke bounds over, going through some cool down stretches beside Billy. His last sparring partner, Dinah, is laying on the mats and catching her breath.
She holds a thumbs up in the air to stave off any concern, rolling neatly into her own stretches. Billy follows the trend, mimicking Duke’s movements as he beams, “Agent A is bringing a snack—”
“Wow.” Barry ambles over, also finished with his last match, and he looks a wreck. He takes in the light in Billy’s eyes, the healthy flush in his face, and meets this with scorn. “I think I hate you. Don’t befriend the enemy.”
Billy frowns, but Duke just laughs, “None taken, Allen. Oracle, right?”
Oh. Barry just came from Babs! That makes sense. Her training rig is absolute hell for everyone, no exceptions; she did point and laugh at Billy marginally less than the others, though, so that was nice.
Billy winces sympathetically as he consoles, “Agent A will bring more than enough food for everyone.”
“No powers, my ass,” Arthur groans, joining them on the ground. “How’d you get Batsy to go easy on you, Cap?”
“Batman doesn’t go easy on anybody,” he snorts, watching the man stalk over to Babs to talk shop.
B is overbearing and controlling sometimes, and that’s really annoying to an adult, but to Billy? It’s like having a helicopter parent, so he can stomach it. Rather, it used to be a little fantasy in his head, when things were especially awful. No matter what was going on in Billy’s life, Captain Marvel had a family in space. He had Batman. The Gotham vigilante leads the League obsessively enough that Billy could convince himself he had a parent in his life who cared about him.
It all came to a head last year. Batman found him in the middle of a panic attack about a science project that would make or break his grade, determining if he would be held back. Billy is still kinda embarrassed about it, but Bruce—because after realizing Billy’s identity in such a vulnerable moment, Batman reciprocated with his own—helped him finish his report and make a model. He even walked him through some tricky concepts he’d been struggling with in other classes, and offered him a place in his manor, no strings attached, for whatever and whenever he needed. Billy might have cried, that time in relief.
“No, I’m with Arthur,” Barry grumbles. “You’re way too okay, considering,” he gestures vaguely.
Billy looks, trying to see the spars from an outside perspective. Dick and Jason are competing against each other, and so are Damian and Tim, and their actual sparring partners—Hal, Oliver, J’onn, and Shayera—are not having nearly as much fun. Clark is trying to Midwesterner-shame the Bats into wrapping things up while Steph heckles and keeps score. Diana and Cass are still fighting, or fighting again, more likely. Bruce is amused but also annoyed, because he and Babs are definitely compiling a dynamic performance review and disagreeing about how to tailor the rest of today’s training to improve those numbers.
Duke whistles the signal for Alfie that everyone in the manor knows, Robin or not. “He’s gonna scold you for playing with your food!”
It works much better than Clark’s begging. His words land like a brick to the face of Barry and Arthur, and maybe the other League heroes, too, but Billy isn’t looking at them. Barry and Arthur are staring at him and his proximity to Duke, waiting for an explanation. And Billy, because his will to live has survived all nine spars fully intact and because he knows that Duke is right but can’t say so without exposing family secrets, gets where the other heroes are coming from.
He shrugs and answers Arthur’s initial question. “It’s not that he goes easy on me. It’s just that B likes me more than the rest of you because I take his advice before he has to repeat himself a thousand times.”
“Wow,” Barry repeats, flopping onto his back so he doesn’t have to look at Billy anymore. “I totally hate you. Now’s no time for jokes, traitor.”
Arthur, on the other hand, has either gone insane or he’s resilient enough to have retained his sense of humor. He barks out a loud laugh. “You little sh—Signal, cover your ears. Batsy says you’re a kid.”
“You cannot be serious,” Duke deadpans.
Arthur might be, but he doesn’t wait for the teen’s compliance. “Marvel, you’re a little shit.”
Billy grins, accepting the compliment happily.
Eventually, they move on from the individual matches.
A stranger provided snacks for everyone to enjoy, a benevolence difficult to trust especially once the elusive ‘Agent A’ subsequently vanished into thin air. Dinah watched the Bats, Captain Marvel, Diana, and Clark descend upon the food with gusto and figured it safe enough, but Ollie, Hal, and Barry in particular—in a well-founded bout of paranoia, considering the Watchtower goof lies mostly on their shoulders—wasted time harping on about how everything was a ploy to lull the League into a false sense of security. The scones were delicious even with the initial bitter curl of trepidation in their stomachs, so Dinah is positive those three are beating themselves up for their hesitance.
Afterwards, the training session transitions to its third phase: free weights, more sparring, and capture the flag. It’s still Bats versus League, but the heroes now have the option to self-organize however they want. This still means that, for the most part, the free weights section is empty; it reeks of cowardice and an unwillingness to face the Bats.
Dinah thinks it’s clear that this is where the actual team training comes into play. She’s sure Batman would say every exercise so far has been genuine, and no doubt they have been… educational, but Dinah knows revenge when she sees it. The ratio of pure humiliation to real training is still a little unfavorably skewed, naturally, but at this point she’s pretty sure that’s 60% the League heroes’ own fault rather than 100% by design.
“Dios mío, you’re pathetic,” Red Hood shakes his head at Shayera and Hal. “I told you BB doesn’t have any weaknesses. Go for the demon brat’s knees instead.”
“My patience wears thin, Hood,” Robin sneers, having been in a poor mood since his father confiscated his swords. “Anticipate my retribution.”
The two are, along with Black Bat, Signal, Red Robin, and Spoiler, currently leading the sparring station. There are two matches happening concurrently, one barehanded and the other allowing the use of weapons and powers. A young Bat coaches the League heroes from either sideline, offering strategies and techniques to defeat their Bat opponents in two-v-two matches. It is exceedingly obvious that they are using this opportunity to terrorize their siblings in an unending game of retribution—each of them gets to be a coach at some point, reveling in the authority that grants them—but their advice is sound and their conflict occasionally entertaining.
“This should be a point of professional pride, Ollie!” Spoiler heckles from the weapons’ mat. “Who cares if Red’s League-of-Assassains-trained, aren’t you Bratva?”
Barry nearly trips over himself. “You’re Bratva?”
Dinah lets her husband fight his own battles, focused on herself. She’s with Nightwing and Oracle, the duo leading a game of capture the flag through an extreme obstacle course. They’re captains on opposing teams, so they’re responsible for everything that entails—sabotaging one another, making tactical plans and facilitating their success, corralling their stubborn teammates, et cetera. It’s… going.
“I love a good team-building exercise!” Nightwing grins. “This is so much fun.”
“The bar is in Hell and you’re letting it decapitate you!” Beside him, Oracle seethes. She is, apparently, very competitive. “Are they even trying to listen to me? Disregarding B’s one thing, but me? Idiots.”
Embarrassingly enough, Dinah thinks the League’s main role in Phase III is learning how to follow directions. That, and maybe also offering and accepting constructive critiques. The heroes don’t have to fight against any Bats here, but they do have to listen to them, and this has proven to be fairly difficult for a variety of reasons.
“Gotta agree,” Nightwing nods. “Ignoring you is like asking to be killed, O.”
“We’ll see how they like it when all their shit stops working,” she mutters darkly.
Dinah, half touched by her team leader’s concern and half concerned herself, wonders if she should throw Arthur a bone to keep Oracle off his back. Her teammate got confused in the maze and wasn’t in position to help her, leaving Dinah to get shot by J’onn’s paint gun and marked ‘out’ for the next few minutes, and in real life that is kinda a big deal, but right now, exhausted as everyone is, it’s hard to blame him fully.
Hard, but not impossible. Dinah doesn’t like looking bad in front of the Bats. She says nothing and makes her way to Batman instead. “At what point is all this gonna start feeling a little excessive?”
It’s a fancy trick of engineering, the way Batman isn’t quite hiding in the walls but still his entire setup is hidden from immediate view, giant supercomputer and all. Of course, he included it in his email about today’s activities, so Dinah had only minimal trouble finding him. With Agent A, apparently. While everyone else is busy, the two have been keeping track of the rest of the world with a remote connection to the Watchtower monitor feed.
“We wouldn’t be here at all if not for the casual disregard of the rules and protocols which have kept the Watchtower safe.”
“I agree that rules made for legitimate reasons should have consequences when broken,” she hums obligingly. “But that’s not what I asked.”
Batman spares her a brief look. “In crasser terms, my children ‘won’ at interrogation, infiltration, and extraction even after they willingly revealed themselves to Arrow, Lantern, Flash, and Wonder Woman.”
“You put Diana in an awkward position,” Dinah points out.
He allows an acknowledging tilt of his head. “I trust her judgment. She chose to play the fool.”
She snorts, looking at the wide grin on the Amazonian’s face who has, since apparently leaving Nightwing’s team, rejoined the sparring mats. While they were snacking earlier, Diana had mentioned something about the nostalgia of days like this in Themyscira. “This isn’t a punishment for her.”
“This isn’t a punishment for anyone,” Batman argues. “This is a necessary training exercise in endurance, cooperation, and team building.”
Dinah totally called it. She doesn’t even try to hide her laughter, and she’s delighted when Agent A joins her in it. “Mhmm.”
“If this feels like a punishment to someone,” Batman continues, an indecipherable twitch to his mouth she wants to call amusement, “I would suggest they stop looking down upon their opponents.”
He really must be a doting father to bully his teammates like this just because they underestimated his kids. Dinah weighs the merit in teasing him about it as a timer goes off and Batman rises. He whistles a quick note, setting off a chain reaction among his mentees of whistling and hand signs and short verbal phrases. It must be time for a last water break before the fourth and final phase of today’s training, so Dinah benevolently decides to save her teasing for later.
She turns to go and stops abruptly, narrowly refraining from flinching in surprise when she sees Robin is at her elbow. “Your presence has been requested. Go to Brown.”
Startled, she only echoes, “Brown?”
“Spoiler,” he points, and Dinah easily finds the girl because though Robin treats everyone around him as if they are utterly foolish, she thoroughly read the email wherein Batman identified all the Batkids by photo and alias who would be involved in today’s training session. Dinah does not need to be color-directed to follow instructions, especially when the color-coded directions are inaccurate.
“Spoiler wears purple,” she corrects gently. “Have you ever been tested for colorblindness, Robin?”
His lip curls, then he turns curtly to Batman. “Father. Permission to—”
“Denied. You’ve just learned a valuable lesson, Robin.”
The quirk to Batman’s mouth is undeniably amused this time, but Dinah is entirely serious. “Batman, it won’t hurt to check. It’s a simple test, and knowing—”
“I agree,” he assures her readily. “I will arrange a test when we return to Gotham.”
“Father.”
“It can only improve your quality of life to have a definitive answer,” he says, to Dinah’s approval.
“Kol khara,” Robin spits, stomping away in obvious anger.
“He’s just embarrassed,” Batman clarifies mildly. “He is getting better at expressing himself. Previously, he would have attempted to cause us both bodily harm while using the League of Assassins dialect to demand that Allah take our souls and let the earth swallow us whole.”
Well, that’s… Dinah clears her throat. “Teenagers, right?”
Batman grunts in agreement.
Batman heaves a heavy sigh into the ringing silence. “Do we need to have a discussion about what exactly constitutes a cooldown activity?”
“Because I can tell you what it is not!” Clark adds, a touch shrilly.
“Don’t oversell it, Kal,” Batman advises. “Everything is fine.”
Arthur knows Batsy is a good guy, if… well, himself. He looks out for the team in his own way, and he doesn’t seek credit for any of it. The endlessly stocked pantry, the break rooms and fidget toys and crash courses on land culture. It’s hard to put to words, exactly, but Arthur knows, unequivocally, that Batman is a good guy who just happens to surround himself with a bunch of child psychopaths. He’s desensitized, it’s not his fault.
A cursory glance around the room confirms Arthur’s suspicions. It’s only the Leaguers coming out of battle ready stances now, none of the Bats having so much as flinched. Hal is in his civvies, has been for a while now, because he’s just about given up searching for his ring. Barry is no longer crying—they kept managing to trip him, it was this whole thing—and Agent A is helping him to a feast which he is eating at a human speed, so, yikes, as the kids say. J’onn has been trying to get inside one of their heads and for some reason locked onto that wraith Black Bat. Arthur does not anticipate his success, but he’s been sending him positive vibes regardless. Oliver is throwing up in the corner. Dinah pats his back soothingly, but she’s also chatting amicably with Diana and Shayera as they patch up each other’s odd wounds, so it’s probably not that serious.
And, of course, there is the matter of the bomb, but Arthur is getting ahead of himself.
The final phase of today’s session was supposed to consist of cooldown activities. Casual things, Batsy focused on assessing how well the League is implementing what they’ve learned so far. Mostly they were chatting, stretching, jogging, maybe walking through a few physical maneuvers. That’s all it was supposed to be.
And it was that, for a while. They discussed strategy and sought clarification about any remaining difficulties, exchanged a few handy tricks. Knowledge the heroes then used, regrettably, to have a few more spars. Why anyone would want to keep fighting after all they have already done today was beyond Arthur, truly, which is especially unfortunate considering he was one of those heroes again partaking in a brawl with the Bats.
Of course, Batman shut it down rather quickly. Robin, who is apparently a perfect vocal mimic, and Signal, who can use his Meta abilities to create illusions, both allied under Red Hood’s creative direction, were in danger of causing lasting psychological damage to the already worn out heroes. At least, that’s what Arthur read between the lines of a growled, “That is not a cooldown activity, boys.”
Batsy didn’t shut down the training center, though—Hood said something like if only there were protocols to deal with things like this, as pointedly unhelpful-helpful as any Bat ever is—so the cooldown continued. Kinda. Arthur and Hal ended up with Red Robin and Oracle for a little while as part of a computer workshop to teach Leaguers what they called basic essentials. It didn’t last long. Oracle got so frustrated that she joined Batman on monitor duty, ranting about computer stuff that guy had a much better chance at understanding. Red Robin dragged the Atlantean and Green Lantern to the sparring mats with a not at all disguised look of disgust.
It was the seagrass that broke the dolphin’s back, but Arthur maintains that In your… what? is an adequate prompt in response to We’ll do it in R. If Hal hadn’t done so first, Arthur would have asked the tech-oriented Bats himself. Arthur is the King of Atlantis. Do the Bats know what’s at the bottom of the ocean? Because he can promise that it is not computers. And Hal spends most of his time in space for Oa, dealing with a variety of alien species who, generally, don’t use Earth-based computer coding systems.
Nevertheless, the two of them have been trapped by this bo staff fanatic for what feels like a century while the teen attempts to work off his frustration. Said something about how they must be baiting him, so he had to remind them that he could kick their asses. Arthur thought that lesson was well learned an hour ago, but what does he know? Bats like to make sure.
Red Robin plucked Arthur’s trident from his hands with a flourish, whirling it with frightening accuracy through a maneuver Arthur had happily taught the little warrior upon request not even thirty minutes ago. He had Hal pinned a breath later and kept him there a moment before tossing the King his weapon and gesturing to go again.
For the record, this did not feel like a cooldown activity.
Then Nightwing had suddenly bounded over, and Arthur thanked the tides, believing he had been saved. “Red,” the Blüdhaven vigilante directed, “dentist appointment.”
“Barry’s dentist appointment isn’t until tomorrow,” the boy dismissed, gesturing more insistently for the heroes to attack him.
“How do you know that?” Hal asked instead, buying recovery time.
“It’s on his personal calendar,” the brothers answered together. Nightwing continued, “And no, Red, you’re scheduled through Leslie’s friend, remember? It’s at three.”
Red Robin swore under his breath, checking something on his wrist holograph thing. “B, I’m out!”
“How—no, that’s a stupid question,” Arthur self-corrected. “Why are you in Barry’s personal calendar?”
Judging by Nightwing’s face, that had also been a stupid question. Arthur crossed his fingers and hoped that the next words out of his mouth would be about how Barry gave them permission. Maybe Nightwing would extend an invite to join their shared calendar that Arthur would be able to politely refuse.
He knew by the younger man’s frown that that would not be the case. “We check his calendar because he uses it. We have to anticipate anything that might affect a mission.”
“Yet you don’t keep track of your own appointments?”
“Double R has had three hours of sleep in as many days,” he explained, nonplussed. “Even if we weren’t brothers, more broadly, covering for each other like this is what a team is supposed to do.”
Is that your excuse for invading our privacy? was what he meant to ask, but what Arthur blurted out was, “We were getting our asses kicked in a 2-v-1 by a teenager suffering from sleep deprivation?”
“He was trained by the League of Assassins,” Hal consoled weakly.
“Who hasn’t been, at this point,” Nightwing waved his hand. “But you’re right that he’s very good at what he does. You learned a lot today, right?”
Arthur paused, conceding the point.
And then the bomb went off.
“Everything is not fine,” Clark barks, not taking kindly to Batman’s insinuation that he is being dramatic.
“No one was so much as bruised, and it did not affect the structural integrity of the training center,” he intones. As an afterthought, he adds, “You did well to neutralize the threat, Kal.”
The only admonishment, if it can even be called that, comes from Nightwing. “Might’ve appreciated a head’s up, Spoils.”
“Defeats the point of the explosion, genius,” Red Hood snorts. Nightwing shrugs in a got me there kind of way that leaves much to be desired.
Spoiler defends, “I said, think fast! before I tossed it.”
Clark gives up on the Dark Knight and turns to the girl. “You threw a bomb at Captain Marvel and I.”
“Just a small one,” she waves her hand, either mistaking his calmer voice for actual calm or uncaring of the fact the superpowered man is hanging by a thread.
Captain Marvel releases a wildly inappropriate chuckle—he could argue that he’s in shock after the vigilante nearly blew him up, except it sounds too amused to be delirium, and the Batkids snicker with him. “My bad. I know this is very, um,” he poorly smothers his grin, “serious.”
Though inopportune, good humor is mildly contagious, and in swallowing his own amusement, Arthur realizes that they already knew Spoiler uses bombs. She brought one up to the Watchtower. Batsy probably expected them to remember that—‘know your enemy’ and all. That explains the Bat’s nonreaction then.
Still, Arthur interjects, “It was glitter last time, wasn’t it?”
“It has glitter this time, too,” Spoiler beams.
Clark’s faux-calm is gone. “In an actual bomb!”
She frowns, clearly confused why he is still freaking out. “Last time, I used a civilian-grade glitter bomb, yeah, but you’re not civilians.”
“We weren’t civilians last time either,” J’onn points out.
“Yeah, but last time we weren’t engaged in combat training. And we were in space. I can’t breathe in the void and I really don’t wanna die again, so obviously I couldn’t have used this in the Watchtower,” Spoiler lays out clearly, a minefield of things Arthur does not currently have the wherewithal to address. “Like, duh. Are you—” Spoiler winces, all condescension gone from her countenance and replaced with genuine concern. “Do any of you need some kind of accommodation? We could work something out, no problem, but you do have to let us know. Especially if you’re masking to the point that even we don’t have a note in your file.”
The rest of the Batkids immediately agree, saying this a judgment-free zone and talking about support networks, head trauma, nutrition, and rest with all the same intensity they brought to the mats.
They could work on minding other people’s boundaries, Arthur decides, but these are good kids. Batsy’s kids. Maybe Arthur is also growing desensitized to their extreme… everything, but he doesn’t think he minds. Does he need an immediate break from their presence for an indefinite amount of time? Yes, absolutely. Right now, in fact, once he can get his legs under him and to the Zeta. But there is no doubt in his mind that one day, in the distant future where he is no longer sore in muscles he didn’t even know he had, he will be glad to form a genuine friendship with these indispensable allies.
“Well said,” Batman nods. “That’s enough for today. Agent A?”
The masked man leads the Batkids away to the free weight station, chatting amicably with them about their performance and soliciting feedback about their experience. Arthur mishears something about money and favors trading hands, but he’s distracted by the way Signal tosses Hal back his ring with a cheeky, “Almost forgot!”
Batman doesn’t react, busy checking his tablet and calling the heroes to attention around himself. He draws breath and releases it in a sigh as soon as he gets a good look at the League. In an act of mercy or weary acceptance, he saves them his spiel and offers quick highlights instead. “I will email you our notes on your performance today to be discussed in two days. I’ve already added this to this week’s meeting agenda.”
“We should do this again,” Diana smiles, immediately lobbying her cause. “It has been a mutually beneficial experience. Your children were occasionally impressed by some of our moves, and they were quite interested in investigating our abilities, Batman. We all had fun.”
“‘Fun’ is the last word I would use,” several voices chime at once. Oliver’s voice rises about the din and adds, “But I agree that the only way from here is up.”
There are general sounds of agreement from everyone. Sore and tired and annoyed as they all are to varying degrees now, it is indisputable that the League has gained a lot from their experience today. There is something to be said about being shown one’s weaknesses and offered strategies to mitigate them as individuals and as teammates.
The something Arthur goes with is a simple, “It would be good to engage in occasional intensive training like this moving forward as well.”
The flat line of Batman’s mouth is satisfied. Hal groans, “We just walked into Spooky’s trap.”
“Lay it on us, Batsy,” Barry sighs. “You already scheduled the next one, didn’t you? And—”
Batman grunts. “Yes. We will continue to provide food for each session. Barring unavoidable circumstances, we will engage in this level of training every six weeks for the next six months, after which we can evaluate our results and adjust accordingly. Of course, there will be other training days interspersed between these sessions which may or may not feature the assistance of my fellow Gotham vigilantes as necessary.”
“Oh, of course.”
Batman ignores the eye rolls. “Any of your suggestions and/or requests will be taken under advisement.”
“Great,” Hal grumbles. Some of his usual mischief sneaks in, tempered by his exhaustion as he teases, “So that’s the stick. Do we get a carrot?”
“Sure,” Batman smirks, properly and visibly so, which is a blaring ABORT MISSION siren if Arthur has ever seen one. “I’ll vote in favor of Nightwing joining the Justice League now.”