Damian started training with his bat, but he didn't have control over it, and the bat kept returning to him uncontrollably, unlike David's control.
Since the bat was mixed with his blood, the blood in it acted as rapid regeneration. It didn't regenerate at all but acted as rapid return speed to Damian when he called it back.
He practiced for months, and by the time he turned 12, he got the hang of it. A kid by the name of Nadia got brought to the orphanage.
Nadia was shy and didn't really talk to anyone. Damian looked at Nadia from afar, and it looked like she was being followed by two ghosts, probably her parents. Her father looked American, and her mother appeared to be Arabian.
Damian deduced that Nadia killed her parents when she awakened her powers. They kept following her around all the time, and they didn't look angry at her. They felt regret and anger towards themselves.
Damian stopped looking at them and minded his own business. Since Melissa, Olivia, and Ava had been adopted, Damian had no one to hang out with. Gloria was always with David, Maya was always playing with the other kids, and Tony always wanted to play, but his idea of playing was always fighting.
So, Damian would go to the library and just read some random books or find an arcade to play games with the stolen money.
He always played with everyone after he got back.
After a week since Nadia arrived, her parents disappeared, and she befriended Tony.
After a few months of staying there, she became close with Tony. There was a time when Tony was about to be dragged somewhere, and somehow, the security guard's head popped, and blood splattered across the room.
Everyone didn't know what had happened, and they all looked towards Damian, believing he was the one who did it. Damian tried to explain it, but the more he explained, the more suspicious he became.
Damian wondered why they would suspect him and came up with a few reasons. First, he wasn't unbothered by the head getting blown off. Second, he was fast enough to kill someone without anyone noticing. Third, he had his energy blast, and they didn't know its full capacity. Last but not least, he was the strongest in the room.
Damian let the matter go and didn't try to explain himself afterwards because he knew who did it.
After they changed the director of the orphanage, kids started getting adopted, but Damian didn't know why everyone was getting adopted. He suspected something when each family that came wanted to adopt him one after another, but he rejected each one.
Damian started reading newspapers because the TV was always on a kids' channel, and each time he tried to change the channel, everyone would shout at him. He could've run somewhere to watch TV, but Damian found it boring to go searching for the news just to watch it for 2 seconds to find out why they were getting adopted, so he read newspapers.
Apparently, there's a superhero team by the name of G-Men that is run by a man named John Godolkin, the son of the late Thomas Godolkin, who built Godolkin University, and he is looking for members for his group.
The G-Men was founded in late 1984 after the disbandment of Payback, and it was only John Godolkin at that time. The following year, five kids became members of the G-Men, and they were slightly older than Damian. The kids were Five-Oh, SilverKincaid, Nubia, Groundhawk, The Divine, and Critter. They were currently being trained by John Godolkin.
In late 1988, their fame started to spread, and they became well known. Superheroes and supervillains started appearing across the United States, and the G-Men were recruiting people with powers or potential.
While Damian was reading this, he sensed some bullshit. He started to investigate John Godolkin and found out he had a contract with Vought International. Damian stopped reading when he found out John was connected to Vought.
Damian figured out why the parents were adopting kids from Red River: they were trying to make money out of them. Damian tried to warn everyone not to go, but they didn't listen to him and thought he was jealous.
After a few months, the parents who adopted Tony returned him because he was not normal but unwell. Nadia was returned by the cops because, apparently, the parents who adopted her were dead, both of them.
Parents began to return some kids, but Gloria and David were not returned.
A few months later, the parents who adopted David and Gloria reported to the cops that they had run away, and the cops asked around the orphanage.
Damian heard stories about a vigilante beating up criminals with a bat, and they started calling him Batkid. Batkid was sometimes with his sister. Damian figured out it was them.
John Godolkin reached out to them to join his team, but there was no update afterwards. Damian thought they got killed and went to the G-Men undetected, but he didn't find them.
For weeks, Damian searched all of New York looking for them but didn't find them. After months of searching across the entire country, he found them living in an abandoned house, looking on edge.
They felt happy when they saw Damian, and they cried afterwards. Damian asked what had happened, but they refused to tell him. Damian asked them to return to Red River, but they were paranoid and refused to return.
Damian took them and dropped them off in Canada, where there were no supes or Vought. Damian figured that if he hid them anywhere in the States, Vought would find them.
He told them he would check on them from time to time. After a few months, they seemed to regain their smiles and refused to talk about what had happened. Damian stopped asking and let the matter rest.
Damian thought about the kids who had been adopted and started to think about his birth parents.