Chapter Text
Bruce was pacing through the room. It'd been close to ten years since the Justice League was formed and he never thought they would be here. He knew logically, things couldn't stay the same way forever, especially when it came to the growing community of superheroes from around the world.
They had started recruiting new members perhaps three years into their existence. At first it was just voting, mostly people who other members of the League knew personally. He never once suggested one of his Gremlins. For one, the League would cry and hid in the corner after being insulted by a twelve year old. His kids were never interested much in joining, not after all the times he came back home and complained about everybody.
Though, after some time new faces joined the scene and more people wished to be a part of the League. The core was not the same, some people died and came back, some passed down their mantles, some quit. Then Diana came up with the brilliant idea of just taking in applications. Though it could lead to some dangers, his arguments were ignored.
That was why he was now standing in an empty meeting room, waiting for Diana to introduce him to his new "students". He would prefer to not take anybody under his wing, he had enough brats to worry about back home. Besides, most of the people he got had that defeated look on their faces. Like getting an apprenticeship with him was the worst punishment on this planet.
He suspected it could be somewhat true. He wasn't the easiest person to be around and definitely people like Oliver, Clark or Barry were more preferable due to their easygoing nature. He also made sure whoever was with him wouldn't be killed. The most didn't even got to patrol Gotham with him for a second time. The fact that there was one person who he mentored until she passed was not helping as well.
Bruce suspected that getting him as a mentor just meant that those people shouldn't be in the League. Because while Oliver could get a full team of six or even seven people, Bruce got three or four. While the rest had teams that were balanced, his teams were random at best, argumentative at worst. It wasn't a big difference. He didn't mind the arrangement at all.
The next three to four months, where he would have to pay attention to random people, making sure they weren't making world-ending mistakes. Until they inevitably dropped out stating that "it has been a busy year, I'll try again next time" or "I don't think I was meant to be a hero". While his friends were getting excited of who's rookie team would do the best in various tests or competitions, Bruce sat in the background, quietly wishing he could be somewhere else.
The door slowly opened and Bruce braced himself for another group Diana deemed to be unfit to join. He turned around and stared.
Diana had a tight smile on her face, clearly uncomfortable, but Bruce was staring right at the three people standing behind her. He knew exactly what kind of devilish grin all of them had on their faces.
"Is this a joke?" he asked, tilting his head to the side in the silent question to the rest.
"Batman," Diana lost her smile, and Bruce could see how tired she was. "I can assure you, this is not a joke. I have asked the fine young, um, heroes for their intentions while joining the League and all of them check out. Please, let me introduce you to your new recruit team. This is Nightwing, Red Hood and Orphan. I'll trust that you can get the important information by yourself."
With that Diana send his three Gremlins a smile and left the room, probably moving to complain to others.
Bruce glared at his kids, but the only thing in return was a smile that said "I didn't do this dad, it was somebody else". He growled, knowing full well his kids found it funny at best.
"My dearest spawn point," Nightwing started and Bruce could feel the excitement vibrating off of her. "I think you could do the funniest thing right now."
And yes, Bruce absolutely could just take the documents, sign them in and tell the league that he had an amazing team this year, who impressed him so much, he couldn't ignore it. Or he could tell them the truth — those were his kids and he trusted them far more than he trusted entirety of the Justice League combined.
But that wouldn't be fun per say. Entertaining for a minute before the rest gathered their jaws off of the floor and bombarded him with irrelevant questions. Or they could have some real fun with the situation.
"I'm open to suggestions," Bruce said, knowing damn well he was going to regret this decision. Fuck this. They'd been bugging him to reveal his identity, he might as well do it with a bang.
His kids looked between each other, deep into the silent discussion about potentially fucking over the entire League and Bruce… Bruce couldn't be prouder. His kids could've come to him directly and demand to be added (which he would do) or simply add themselves when one of them was covering for him. There were so many options and yet, here they were, refusing any special treatment.
Expect the fact that he was their mentor in this thing. Honestly, if he treated them like any other candidates he had, they would be done before midnight and still have time to grab ice cream. Which he could do. Even though it would be fair to everybody else, he didn't think it would help with whatever reason they had to be here.
He was given the surveys back. All three of them were staring at him, so he sighed and started to read.
His eyes immediately dropped to "hobbies" section. Diana put it there to have something to bond over. He fought the urge to bang his head onto the table.
Hobby:
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Annoying my dad
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Causing chaos
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Collecting bones and rats
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All of the above
With three boxes drawn next to the last one, each one containing a neat X in the middle. Bruce stared at the ceiling, trying to connect with any god that would be merciful enough to hear his prayers. Why, oh why did his kids couldn't have normal hobbies?
At this point Bruce would even take things like witchcraft. Or minecraft. Any other craft. Anything rather than being a chaotic shitlings whose main hobby was making sure he went grey before hitting forty.
He looked at them and growled. He knew that any and all intimidation tactics were useless on his kids. No matter how hard he glared, they just grinned back or put their innocent act up.
Unfortunately for him, Diana had chosen this moment to enter the room. His kids' demeanour changed, fitting their vigilante personas a little too well. Bruce knew even he could not change between his personas that fast. He had raised little devils he was sure would make him look stupid without even trying to. At least he stopped jumping whenever one of them sneaked up on him.
"Batman, we have a little problem with your team. Could I steal you for a moment?" she asked, eyeing the rest.
Batman raised his eyebrows, even though he knew it was invisible to her. He followed her out, closing the door, yet knowing it was useless. He knew they knew he knew they would be listening to every word of this forsaken conversation and pretending otherwise would be simply stupid.
He looked at Diana and she nodded. He was glad that (at least the main Leaguers) were starting to get his none-verbal ques. It made life so much easier for him.
"I'm sure you're aware that usually we ugh — " she stopped and looked down. Now, that was something new. " — give you less than perfect candidates that end up dropping out. This year I have tasked diving our candidates into groups to someone else and there had been a mix up."
"Oh?" he asked. He wondered which one of his kids was not supposed to be there. "Well, this year I can't complain. I really got a great team. I wonder who got the short end of the stick."
He looked at her, trying to challenge her views. He knew that he never praised his candidates and one glance at her confirmed it. She was taken aback by his words, not knowing what should she answer.
"Either way, what was the mix up?" he asked. Diana looked panicked. Her eyes were a little too wide and her smile a little too tight.
"I was not put into any group and since yours is the smallest, I shall join it," a very familiar voice said. Diana looked startled even more.
"Oracle, what a surprise. I could've sworn you were already a member?" he deadpanned, prying that he wouldn't have to deal with four of them at once. He would rather quit and just let them do whatever.
"In fact I was not. Do not worry, you needn't repeat what have you already said. I heard everything, I simply didn't fancy scaring the rest of my new recruit group," she answered and Bruce could imagine the feral grin Barbara had on her face. He had seen it when she was Batgirl and jumped on people whenever she felt like it.
Bruce nodded at Diana, turning away. She didn't call for him, nor negated anything of what was said.
Now the real shit show would start. Bruce simply couldn't wait.
After casually mentioning Oracle as another one of their teammates and sending them home, Bruce felt weirdly satisfied. He and his teammates were a alright team. They had their differences and at the end of the day he could work with them.
But being vigilante in Gotham made you a little more crazy than your average superhero. Being a vigilante in Gotham trained by Batman made you a special brand of insane, to the point where the only one who could understand you were the people in the same situation. Though, it had its advantages. Mainly, the moment all of them focused on a common threat instead of their usual arguments, they work exceptionally well. Those little moments of connection in most dire of situations were a reason for loving even more what he was doing.
Moving to the meeting room, he noticed nobody else was in the halls. The rest had either finished earlier than him or all of them were still stuck in the process of meeting their teams. Which was unusual. More likely than not, Diana had already informed them of his unlikely reaction and they were hiding.
Not ideal, but he could work with that.
He was proven correct when he silently entered the room and found the rest gathered at the table, whispering. He caught words like "unusually happy", "weird", and "spooky". He didn't know if Hal was calling him or his behaviour spooky, but in the end it changed little in the context of the conversation.
He sat down, waiting for anybody to notice him.
Nobody did.
He wondered how the fuck they were supposed to survive his kids.
Finally, Oliver noticed him, shrieking like Bruce just murdered somebody. The rest looked in his direction and he just shrugged. Diana stood up and started the speech of another year of fresh blood and new candidates.
"— The points are not an indicator of the result. They are simply meant as a tool helping you to determine if somebody should join our ranks by presenting a semi-objective scale —" nothing new for him. He was the one to put the scale together after all.
"— The teams could participate in games. This year category are chosen on what we are in need of the most. I will reveal them one by one, a day before. The tomorrow's game is case solving —" oh fuck no, Bruce thought. Everything, but this.
"— the rest of details will be posted tomorrow morning. Thank you for today," as Diana finished, Bruce stood up, nodded and promptly left the room. Fuck.
Tomorrow is going to be entertaining.