Training became ritual.
Not punishment. Not obsession. Structure.
Every morning before school, Ryker sat cross-legged on the polished floor of the spare room Selina had converted. Sunlight filtered through tinted glass, painting long stripes across the mat.
"Breath controls instinct," Selina Kyle would say, pacing in front of him. "Instinct without control is just noise."
At first he struggled.
His claws reacted to spikes of fear, anger, surprise. They slid out too quickly. Retracted too slow. His healing factor left no scars but the sensation of tearing never became pleasant.
But by eight, he could extend them silently.
By nine, he could hold them steady without trembling.
By ten, they obeyed like fingers.
He inherited Slade's physicality fully now. Denser musculature. Elevated reflexes. Reaction speed that made instructors blink twice. He pulled punches unconsciously. Timed his breathing. Calculated angles.
He never showed anyone.
Selina made that rule ironclad.
"No one sees," she reminded him often. "Not friends. Not teachers. Not anyone."
He nodded.
He understood.
Mostly.
Because keeping power secret when you're ten feels like holding lightning in your pockets.
And sometimes you want to see it spark.
Selina's life shifted around him. Being Catwoman required nights, risks, unpredictable hours.
Motherhood required presence.
She chose presence.
The catsuit stayed locked away more often than not. Gotham whispered about Catwoman sightings becoming rare. Rumors drifted. She ignored them.
Her son mattered more than rooftops.
One afternoon, sunlight spilled gold across Gotham Park. Ryker climbed an oak tree with easy confidence while Selina watched from below, sunglasses on, posture relaxed but eyes sharp.
"Don't go too high," she called.
"I won't!"
He absolutely did.
At the highest sturdy branch, he felt the bark shift under his weight. Instinct flickered.
Just a little, he thought.
Just to balance.
Three bone claws slid out quietly into the tree's trunk, anchoring him. No one looking up would see. He felt the stability instantly. Secure. Powerful.
He grinned.
He loved this feeling.
"Ryker," Selina warned mildly. "Down."
He retracted them smoothly and, instead of climbing, leapt.
Flamboyant. Twisting midair. Landing in a low crouch like something born to rooftops.
She raised a brow.
"Showoff."
He grinned wide. "You told me to practice landings."
She hadn't seen the claws.
But someone else had.
Across the park path, a man in casual clothes froze mid-stride.
He wasn't random.
He was former.
Former Project Cadmus researcher. Officially reassigned. Unofficially resentful.
He had spent years studying metahuman gene potential.
And he had just watched a ten-year-old anchor himself into a tree with biological blades.
His eyes sharpened.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
That night he made a call.
There were always black projects. Always funding streams that never fully dried up. Cadmus had roots everywhere.
"Found something," he said quietly into the phone.
Plans began forming immediately.
Days later, Selina had to leave for a brief business meeting. Legitimate. Public. Short.
She stocked the fridge. Left prepared meals. Security systems armed.
Ryker was not reckless. He read. Practiced breathing exercises. Played strategy games. He could entertain himself without dismantling the house.
She would be gone two hours.
It took less than ten minutes after she left.
The penthouse security flickered once.
Just once.
Ryker noticed.
He stood slowly from the living room.
The balcony glass exploded inward in a controlled breach pattern.
Black-suited, armored figures flooded the room with tactical precision.
No insignias.
No hesitation.
Ryker's heartbeat spiked.
Claws slid out instantly.
"Hey!" he shouted, instinct overriding caution.
He launched forward.
Fast.
Too fast for a normal child.
He slashed at the first man's armor, sparks flying as bone met reinforced plating. He ducked a taser arc. Drove a punch into another's knee hard enough to crack joint housing.
For a moment, shock flickered across their helmets.
Target is enhanced.
Then they adjusted.
Net launchers.
High voltage suppression rods.
A sonic pulse disoriented him mid-leap.
He staggered.
Another figure moved behind him with surgical timing and injected something cold into his neck.
His muscles betrayed him instantly.
He collapsed, claws still extended.
Vision swimming.
He tried to fight it.
He really did.
But ten years old, no matter how enhanced, is still ten.
Darkness swallowed him.
Selina returned to shattered glass and overturned furniture.
The silence was wrong.
"Ryker?" she called sharply.
No answer.
Her stomach dropped.
She moved through the penthouse in controlled panic. No blood. No body.
Gone.
She made calls.
Every contact. Every underground broker. Every whisper network Gotham had.
Nothing.
Hours passed.
Then desperation crept in.
She almost called Bruce.
Her hand hovered over the number.
A voice behind her stopped her.
"I wouldn't."
She turned.
Slade Wilson stood near the window like he had always been there.
Armor subdued. Mask off.
His expression was carved from stone.
"You know," she said coldly.
"I monitor what matters to me."
Her jaw tightened.
"He's not your—"
"He is," Slade interrupted evenly. "Blood doesn't disappear because you ignore it."
Silence stretched.
"You going to moralize?" she snapped.
"No." His single visible eye hardened. "I'm going to retrieve him."
There was no bravado. No smugness.
Just lethal certainty.
"You think I need your help?" she challenged.
"You need results."
She hated that he was right.
And she agreed.
The search was brutal.
Cadmus shells. Black sites. Dead ends.
Slade tore through mercenary channels like a storm. Selina extracted information with surgical precision. Money. Threats. Broken fingers.
After three days, they found a lead.
An unregistered facility outside city limits.
Power grid masked.
Personnel off-book.
Slade hacked a terminal and found partial logs before wiping systems.
He didn't speak at first.
Then quietly:
"They're testing him."
Selina went very still.
"They've infused his skeletal structure."
"With what?" she demanded.
"Promethium."
Her breath caught.
Promethium. The volatile alloy Slade himself used in his gear. Hyper-durable. Conductive. Rare.
"They're trying to bond it to his bones," Slade continued, voice tight. "And they've been stress-testing his regeneration."
Selina saw red.
"Move," she said.
Inside the facility, Ryker screamed.
For hours.
Promethium infusion wasn't gentle. It wasn't surgical in the way surgeons meant.
It was forced.
They had broken him repeatedly to trigger regeneration. Measured pain thresholds. Logged data.
He refused conditioning prompts. Refused verbal compliance tests.
He bit one technician hard enough to tear through glove and skin.
He was sedated again.
And again.
His skeleton burned from the inside.
When they finally bonded the metal through regenerative fusion, his body stabilized around it.
He felt heavy.
Hot.
Wrong.
But alive.
They prepared neural conditioning protocols.
Then the alarms blared.
The doors detonated inward.
Deathstroke entered like an executioner.
Catwoman moved beside him, precise and lethal.
They did not hesitate.
Slade was merciless. Efficient. Tactical strikes that ended lives before panic could form.
Selina moved like fury given shape. Disarming. Crippling. Silencing.
They found containment rooms.
Children.
Selina stopped everything to unlock every cell.
"Run," she told them. "Follow the alarms. Go."
Then she found him.
Strapped to a reinforced chair.
Bruised.
Thin.
Eyes unfocused but still conscious.
"Ryker," she breathed.
His head turned slowly.
"Mom?"
Her composure shattered.
She tore restraints apart with tools grabbed off a tray.
He collapsed into her arms, body trembling.
He felt different.
Denser.
When she held him, she could feel the unnatural weight of bonded metal beneath skin.
Slade entered seconds later.
His gaze scanned his son clinically.
Then something flickered there.
Rage.
Not loud.
Cold.
He left the room and slaughtered everyone remaining in the facility.
Every technician. Every guard. Every data core destroyed.
He erased logs.
Burned servers.
When they returned to Gotham, the penthouse felt smaller.
Ryker didn't speak much.
He healed physically.
But not cleanly.
He woke from nightmares clutching his arms like something inside him hurt.
Phantom pain rippled along his bones where promethium now fused permanently.
He moved slower for weeks.
Quieter.
Selina barely slept.
Slade visited once.
He handed her a data drive.
"They documented everything," he said quietly. "Blood samples. Genetic breakdowns. They were excited."
She stared at him with fury blazing.
"You let this happen," she said.
His jaw tightened.
"They would have found him eventually."
"You don't get to justify this."
Silence.
He looked toward Ryker's closed bedroom door.
"They won't touch him again."
It wasn't reassurance.
It was a vow.
"Leave," Selina said, voice breaking.
He hesitated only a second before walking out.
She locked the door behind him.
Then she went to her son.
Later that night, when he finally slept, she gently lifted his shirt.
Faint surgical marks remained. Bruises fading. Beneath her touch, she could feel the unnatural density of his bones.
Promethium laced through her child.
She pressed her forehead to his shoulder and cried quietly.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just enough for the grief to escape.
Gotham had taken something.
And Ryker, at ten years old, had already learned what it meant to survive a laboratory.
He wasn't the same boy who climbed trees anymore.
He was heavier.
In more ways than one.
And somewhere in the dark, something inside him had hardened.