It was another late August day. The mentors, as usual, were busy in a meeting, leaving Roy, Robin, Sparrow, and KF to there own devices.
"I say we hide and see what they do about it." Dick said calmly. They were trying to think of ways to prank their mentors...
"Why not train for a bit?" Roy asked. "I hear the league has androids they train with. Sounds a ton more interesting than just plain old sparring..."
"I know where they keep them!" Sparrow was already scampering over to the locked cupboard in the training room. She pulled a bobby pin from her raven hair and inserted it into the master lock, fiddling for a few moments... It clicked open.
"Eleven seconds. Not bad." Robin grinned, and Wally, and excited blur, opened the cupboard and started dragging out the training bots...
"What level should we set them on?" Dick asked. But Wally was already setting them up, messing with the settings...
"Ready for combat. Attack will commence in ten seconds..." one of them announced.
"Wally, what level did you set it on?" Robin asked, not really worried. He and Scarlet had trained with the bots before, they weren't that hard...
"Ten." Wally said, unpreturbed.
"Wait, what? I've only trained on level six before!" Robin said, staring at Wally and then at the six bots.
"It shouldn't be too hard. Not with all four of us." Wally said, shrugging off Dick's concern. Just then, the bots started shooting lasers. The frantic kids jumped and dodged, desperate not to be shot...
"Get behind the couch!" Roy yelled, taking aim at the lead bot and firing off an arrow. The robot caught it before it hit it's chest, before snapping it in half, and Roy gulped. This was going to be hard...
"Sparrow! Delta four!" Robin yelled, and both of them flipped into the air, Scarlet landing on the bot's shoulder and taking out the sensor in it's back, head, and stomach before leaping, managing to land shakily on the next bot...
Robin worked faster, twisting in mid-air to avoid the laser beam.
"Distract them!" Scarlet yelled, and Wally did what he did best, being annoying, He ran around them in circles, while Roy managed to snare some of the ots in foam and trick arrows...
"Roy, we need cover, now!" Robin announced. In total, only one bot had been disabled. All the others were still operating...
Roy fired off an explosive arrow that gave them some smoke cover for a moment, before deciding to dodge into close-range firing.
Unbeknownst to them, he mentors had been attracted by the commotion and were watching in the wings, Flash moved to help them, but Batman stopped him with a raised hand. "Wait. Let's see if they can do it." he said.
He watched Scarlet dodge a mechanical punch and launch herself up, both feet striking on the bot's chest and sending him stumbling back into Wally, who'd made himself into a speed-bump. The robot hit the floor, knocking out the last sensor on his back...
Roy and Robin had teamed up, as well, Robin doing flips and faking out the robots while Roy trapped them with foam arrows, before knocking the last few sensors out of them. After five minutes of struggle, the last bot powered down...
"Almost... didn't make it..." Roy panted, and Scarlet nodded her agreement.
"How many times have we told you not to use the bots unsupervised?" Batman growled, startling them all. "You may have beat them this time, but what it you hadn't? They aren't programmed to stop- they could've killed you."
"Yeah... but they didn't. I did it... WE did it..." Roy grinned at his comrades, who looked as though they wanted to exchange high fives at the moment, Batman had to admit, taking down six bots at their age on level ten, which was when they started using lasers, was a big accomplishment, but he wouldn't praise them after they'd disobeyed him...
"Clean up the bots. Robin, Sparrow, you're grounded for two days." Batman said firmly, before striding out of the room.
All the rest of the mentors followed, and Superman gave Batman a questioning look. "They did really well. Why would you punish them?"
"They disobeyed orders. What will it teach them if they get off free? That it's okay to disobey orders- they disobeyed orders once in Gotham and they'd be DEAD. So I punish them." Batman said simply, not at all bothered.
"But... they think you hate them..." Oliver said, looking troubled.
"No they don't- it's clear you're still pretty new to the entire father thing, Queen." Batman said. "Punishment and pleasure both require a delicate balance. They know I'm ticked off because they disobeyed orders and did something dangerous. They also know that by the time we get back to the Batcave, if they behave, it'll be forgotten. Forgive and forget. Live and learn." Batman said calmly, looking completely stone-faced, as normal.
"So, you really do care about them?" Wonder Woman asked, studying the Dark Knight's expression.
They saw something like disbelief and pain okay out under the cowl, though it was very hard to tell.
"What do you think? They're my children." and with that, Batman turned to leave, cape sweeping the floor as he headed to his room- he had paperwork to do, political meetings to arrange... He saw out of the corner of his eye the children cleaning up the bots and smiled slightly beneath the cowl- something he'd found himself doing a lot more these past eleven months since he adopted two little rays of sunshine.