Avoiding Past And Future

(49) Intermediate

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.