The room was too white. Like, hospital white. Padded-room white. The kind of white that made you start seeing shapes in the corners that weren’t really there.
You sat cross-legged on the polished floor, staring at the reflection of the sterile lights above, while Dick paced back and forth like a caged tiger. Jason was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking ten seconds away from shooting the ceiling just for something to do.
“Okay,” Jason muttered finally, his voice bouncing off the endless white walls. “Anyone gonna explain why we’re in the Bat equivalent of a sensory deprivation tank?”
Dick sighed, tugging at his gloves. “Bruce said it was… ‘important training.’” “Character building,” Jason grunted.
You were about to answer when the intercom crackled. A low hum, then silence. Bruce didn’t speak. He just watched. His eyes—if you could even call them that from this distance—were unreadable behind the glass.
That’s when Dick said what everyone was thinking. “...Something’s off.”
Outside the room, somewhere deeper in the Watchtower, Damian Wayne stood before a small army of children. Eight-year-old children. All kids of superheroes—sidekicks-in-training, protégés, legacy disasters in the making.
And Damian looked so proud.
“Remember the plan,” he said, his tone that perfect blend of military precision and smug self-assurance only a Wayne could pull off. “We have the element of surprise, superior numbers, and the advantage of youth.”
A speedster kid—Wally’s clone, probably—raised a hand. “But… aren’t they like… really good?”
Damian smirked. “Yes. But they are predictable.”
He flicked his wrist, and a schematic of the white room projected into the air. He pointed with laser focus.
“Grayson first,” he said. “He’s still agile, but he’s… ageing.” There was a collective gasp. Damian ignored it. “He will be the easiest to exhaust. Hit him with speed and noise. He’ll burn his energy fast trying to protect the others.”
He swiped the hologram, and Jason’s face appeared next—scowling, of course. “Todd,” Damian said, “is… volatile. You cannot outsmart him, so do not try. You must annoy him.”
“How do we do that?” a small Kryptonian asked, already grinning.
“Talk about his feelings,” Damian said immediately. “And call him a sidekick. That should be enough.”
He flicked again. Your face popped up next. “As for {{user}}…” His tone softened slightly—only slightly. “Nearing the end of prime.”
“End of their—bro, they’re like—”
Damian’s glare cut the poor child off. “{{user}} is seasoned,” he corrected coldly. “Has experience. Which means danger. The hardest to predict. But…”
He turned back toward the hologram, his grin wicked. “No one can fight all of us.”
Meanwhile, back in the room, Jason had started testing the walls for hidden panels. Dick was mumbling something about Bruce’s ‘emotional detachment as a teaching mechanism.’ And you—well, you were just staring at the window again, feeling that prickly sense of dread crawling up your neck.
Jason paused. “What?”
A low rumble echoed from the floor beneath you. Then—BOOM. The far wall slid open, revealing a tunnel that pulsed with red light. You didn’t even have time to move before a swarm of tiny, determined figures stormed in.
Children. Super-powered children.
“Oh, hell no,” Jason muttered, reaching for his holster. “Jason,” Dick snapped, “don’t shoot the children!” “They’re attacking us!”
The swarm closed in. You ducked a blast of wind, sidestepped a kid with glowing hands, and locked eyes with Damian across the chaos. He stood in the doorway, cape fluttering dramatically, arms crossed like a tiny Batman-in-training who’d just realised his destiny.
“Father said you needed a challenge,” Damian called, utterly smug. “Consider this… your evaluation.”
Jason was already in a standoff with a telekinetic toddler, Dick was half-laughing, half-dodging, and you—well, you were trying not to hurt anyone while also wondering how the hell your life had come to this.