Paying no mind to the discourse among the mentors, everybody silently tracked the glitch moving across the screen. The camera wasn't the only one who picked up on the oddity as they watched Wolf's gaze track him as well. The snarling from the security footage once again getting on Cujo's nerves as the pup growled deeply.
Danny reached down to pick him up, cradling him to his chest so the ghost pup didn't have the space go hound-out so close to very expensive tech. Cujo seemed to calm down enough to let them focus back on the security feed.
The glitch was easy to follow, weaving between people and the tables until it suddenly stopped right next to Dick's unconscious body. Though it was hard to see, they could vaguely make out the glitching part reaching out towards Dick. Where once was just a camera malfunction, suddenly Danny blinked into view, holding onto Dick's hand.
They watched in silent horror as utter chaos erupted.
Wolf trying to attack either just Danny or both Dick and Danny. It was too hard to tell at this point.
Cujo appearing to protect them both. At least, they figured it was Cujo. Not even Danny had ever seen this form. Though the even larger size and literal flames were new, it did start to make at least a bit of sense as to why Cujo always felt warm. He had assumed it was just part of his ghost-animal physique but maybe some extra research might be warranted.
They watched Oliver try to shoot Cujo, utterly failing as the hound simply phased through it. Dick didn't understand why they were attacking Cujo. He wasn't doing anything wrong! They weren't even in any danger outside of Wolf going insane.
He understood even less why Barry thought it was a good idea to make a move on a clearly powered being. Any funny quips he had been thinking of were silenced when he watched the man fall down and collide with one of the tables. Blood started pouring from the man's leg. Even with speedster healing, a hit to the leg could make or break a fight for them. And this? This felt like the ball was fully in Cujo's court now.
Barry knew Cujo was just trying to protect them, right? They attacked him, they couldn't possibly fault Cujo for that.
Right?
At least J'onn seemed to be the calmest of the bunch, save for Batman of course as Arthur was visibly struggling to keep Wolf back. The man was busy enough trying to keep the simulation from collapsing or becoming an even bigger problem. Something he seemed to be doing quite well given the circumstances.
It helped them absolutely not one bit when Bruce pulled down the cowl. Whatever defense they could have tried to go with went up in smoke in that very moment. Even Selina, who had never spent time with the mentors before, could immediately pick up on a shift between them. The switch between following orders because they wanted to and because they had to was impossible to miss. The blatant glares as they watched Bruce walk away after lifting Dick off the table even less.
"Did you know about this?!" Barry asked Dinah, immediately limping back over to Wally once Wolf calmed down enough that they didn't need his help anymore.
Dinah looked at the speedster incredulously. "Exactly how did you expect me to know about this, Barry? I'm not a mind reader, no offence, J'onn." The Martian didn't give any indication he heard, nor cared for her words. Sweat was building on his forehead from the considerable strain he was under to keep everything from collapsing.
"I don't know!" The blond man bit out, wincing as he looked over his injury again. The cuts were slowly closing but nowhere near fast enough to heal before his dinner date with Iris later. Oh how she wasn't going to enjoy him getting injured during what was supposed to be a calm and safe training session.
Oliver turned to Barry, ready to defend Dinah in this whole mess. "Didn't Wally spend the night in Gotham a bit ago? If anything, you should have been the one to know about any of it!"
"He never mentioned anything about a random kid! All he said was that Dick was struggling with something and I wasn't going to push shit without Dick coming to me about it first!" The speedster desperately tried to defend both himself and his nephew. How was he supposed to know any of Wally's little ramblings might have been about a demon dog and Batman's secret kid? He turned back to Dinah, pointing a finger at her as he gestured wildly. "She's the one who spent the most time with the kids out of all of us!"
Dinah looked like she was ready to give the man another bump on his head, preferably with one of Oliver's arrows. "You were all in the room this entire time! Not a single one of you noticed anything off either until that boy just suddenly appeared!" Maybe evening out the brain damage would help the speedster think clearer.
"Perhaps it may be advised to wait for Batman to return and explain the meaning behind our predicament." J'onn gritted out as he slowly lowered back to the ground. Before anybody else could say anything, Wolf's head snapped back up. Just a few moments later, Batman reentered the room alone.
Everybody expected an explanation, even the four of them watching in the Batcave expected Bruce to say something, anything, that would fix the unrest. But the man never did. His immediate focus went to J'onn, devising a plan to try and take back control.
Much to Dick's horror, once they let time within the simulation return to normal, it soon became clear he was very much still connected to the display above his table. Though he was not in the room with the others anymore, the mentors still had his point of view the entire time. He had thought, hoped, Bruce had merely meant they were still able to track where he was by watching the others. But no. Of course, that level of luck would have to be the work of fairytales and literal magic to happen to him.
Unable to force himself to move, they watched on as the rest of the simulation played out. It only truly started getting out of hand when J'onn entered the simulation and Kaldur was the next to fall. As Arthur remained quiet, it were Barry and Oliver who voiced the concerns nobody else dared. Well, until it started to become painfully clear this literal stranger wasn't just a stranger. Not with his obvious training and Dick's closeness to him.
It didn't take long before Oliver started cursing out Bruce. Not only for hiding the existence of this boy, questioning if they hadn't proven themselves trustworthy enough to know about things like this when they knew about their real identities. But also for putting everybody at risk, putting their kids' safety in the hands of somebody nobody knew existed. What were thought to be private conversations between the two boys, now used to rip into the man deemed responsible for it all.
Dinah tried to calm him down, hoping to discuss it after they got everything fixed, but it was no use.
Barry egged it on, pointing out repeatedly how a meta-child who supposedly wasn't even medically cleared to be on the field, should not have been attending classified team training sessions in the first place. He didn't hold back on pointing out the dangers of a meta child with a wide set of abilities to be put in a situation where they could potentially lose control over said abilities and hurt others. As the resident speedster and only person to have gained abilities in their current group, he knew firsthand how dangerous not having proper control could be, having gone through horrors himself when Wally first got his powers.
There was no diffusing this until they got the kids out safely.
The only one not openly involved seemed to be Arthur. They hadn't expected him to either. As king of an entire civilization, they knew he had just as much, if not more practice remaining calm in stressful situations as Batman did. Though they noticed a few pointed glances, his focus remained on Kaldur's vitals.
Bruce did his best to seem unfazed, appointing himself in charge of keeping an eye on J'onn's vitals and keeping track of his location via the views of the Team. Or, what remained of the team at least.
Everybody in the room knew it were his kids leading a suicide mission. His kids who lied and were still lying to their teammates, their friends or at least Dick's friends, and led them straight to their deaths. Behavior they had come to expect from Batman, but not from somebody as innocent as Dick. There were only so many times he could take having to listen to Danny being blamed for Dick's decisions before tuning it all out and just focusing on the display above Dick's empty table.
It seemed the pair of blonds had calmed down a reasonable amount by the time Connor died and the boys were placing the bombs over the power core. Danny's breakdown really put a stopper to most of the arguing. Nobody liked hearing a child in such primal pain, no matter their current opinions on the child's mentor. They relented to silently seethe at the dark knight, not adding any more pressure after that.
At least, until Danny dropped out of the air and transformed back. Visible tension rose between the adults as they could tell exhaustion would be the eventual cause of Dick's and Danny's demise. A painful reminder that Barry had been right about the unpredictability of meta abilities in children when they weren't cleared to be out in the field.
They hadn't seen it coming, really they should have, they had the perfect vantage point to see it all happen. Yet still. Just like Bruce, they had all been focused on Dick's abandoned table. Either reliving those hellish moments inside their minds, or witnessing what their beloved boys had to go through for the first time. They had gotten a cliff note version the evening before, but neither adult fully grasped the hell they went through until they saw it for themselves.
The sucker punch that Bruce bodied came just as suddenly for them as it did for Bruce.
Dinah and Arthur jumped in to hold Oliver back as he yelled obscenities. Cursing Bruce out for keeping something as big as a possible Robin clone a secret from them all. For not keeping control of his 'secret assets' and endangering the lives of the kids they swore to protect. For not even warning any of them before they trusted their kids in his care.
If this had been a real situation, their kid's blood would be on his hands, because he didn't tell anybody about his meta child. And as it currently stood, that might still happen.
Barry was torn between holding his friend back and staying with Wally. Nobody seemed to focus on the kids anymore outside of him and ironically Bruce himself. Both of them staring intently at their kids' display, as the only two still having a kid fighting for their lives in there, hoping for a miracle that they'd somehow make it out.
A miracle neither of them received.
Wally had been so close too. Just a bit more and he would have made it to the safe zone to survive the blast radius. But Barry knew Wally wouldn't make it. Not when he could feel his boy's pulse shoot sky high when whichever of the two birds said they'd follow after blowing the doors off. Both of them had clocked the lie in an instant, and though maybe not intended, Wally had slowed down. Slowed down enough so he could try to make a high speed U turn as safely as one could on an alien ship. As smart as that boy was, he was too loyal to his friends for his own good.
Loyalty that ended up costing him his simulated life.
Barry glared at Bruce, notably less venomous than Oliver, but the anger was still there. Bruce didn't even look like he got hit, the cowl blocking most if not all of the impact before the others managed to pull Oliver away. Not that it stopped the archer from continuing on his tirade, determined to add another, more visible mark.
It didn't take long for J'onn to stir after the Martian stabbed M'gann to shock her awake, giving new hope to every mentor to focus back on their own kid to be the next to show a sign of waking up.
Danny had to be the one to shut down the footage after that. Sinking down to his knees and curling around Cujo as the pup let out worried whines again.
It had been his fault.
His fault things went as badly out of hand as they did.
His fault people were injured.
His fault Cujo got attacked, even if he was unharmed. Maybe he should have never left Belle Rêve, or found a way to make a personal, halfa-proof cell in the Zone where nobody could find him.
He knew he should have stayed away from his brother. Let Dick live the life he had built without Danny in it. Maybe then Bruce wouldn't have gotten hurt and Dick's team wouldn't be at risk of being disbanded. Would his brother's friends even still want to be near him after what Danny did to them? Were Bruce and Dick in trouble because he had been selfish enough to think he actually had a shot at starting over?
Maybe Mr. Zatara and Barry were right, he really is a danger to others.
It almost didn't even register when Selina pulled him closer, Dick tucked under her other arm as she tried her best to comfort them both. Shiro and Nanaki both cuddled into Dick, letting a stressed out Cujo fuss over Danny. Even Alfred attempted to comfort them, rubbing soft circles on their backs.
Though both adults knew it wasn't their faults, even after all the insults and accusations thrown at all three Bats, that didn't stop the self-blaming. Danny may have gotten the brunt of the attacks, Dick still felt responsibility as the more experienced hero.
Danny might be older by birth, but Dick had seniority over most of the League. If anybody should be blamed for what happened in there, it should be him. He was acting leader, he was the most senior hero outside of J'onn on scene. He had final say over everything, he is the one they should be mad at.
If they dared blame Danny for anything, he'd march right on into the Watchtower himself and make them all listen until they understood it wasn't Danny's fault. He had no issues lacing his hands with Kryptonite dust for the occasion either. Bruce had more than enough of a reserve anyway. For people calling themselves the Justice League, there was a surprising lack of justice in their reasoning at times.
As if it couldn't get any more overwhelming, they all tensed up like Danny accidentally froze them all when an all too familiar voice echoed in the Batcave.
Batman 02
Bruce walked out of the Zeta tube, seemingly unaware of the people an ends away as he pulled off his cowl. He sighed deeply as he ran a hand through greasy hair. There was a nasty bruise starting to form along his temple and eye, undoubtedly from where Oliver hit him. Did the cowl not cover the impact, or did the archer put his entire body weight into the attack to make sure Bruce would actually feel it?
Danny didn't want to think about it too much. It was his fault Bruce got hurt, genuinely hurt from the looks of it. Before he could even register his own movements, he set out in a dash, his IV getting ripped out as it snagged on the Batcomputer's chair.