Talon's Grasp - lowflyingfruit - Batman (2024)

Chapter 1: The Labyrinth

Chapter Text

Even before Dick opened his eyes, he could feel the sharp white lights pressing in on them. It didn’t do much for his hangover, that was for sure.

Funny, he couldn’t recall having more than a glass of wine last night. He’d drunk it with Raya, and they’d got a bit distracted…and there the memory stopped. Now he was…wherever this was.

Years of training and experience taught him that playing possum for a few minutes after regaining consciousness could be a very valuable thing. Dick kept his eyes shut against that bright, artificial light and took stock of everything else he could without sight.

First, he was not in good shape. His head was pounding and his stomach roiling. There was a dry, bitter taste in his mouth that was definitely from being drugged. He didn’t seem to be injured, though. Point one in his favour. That point was immediately rendered moot by the fact he was bound wrist and ankle. Rope, not plastic or wire.

Second, he wasn’t alone. When Dick strained his ears he could hear breathing and shifting and the rustling of clothes. He had an audience. Watching him in his drugged sleep. Creepy. Alarming. He didn’t know which was worse.

It was warm here, and slightly humid. Somewhere enclosed, then, a building with lights and climate control. He could hear the splash of running water very close. The air smelled of damp and stone. It wasn’t enough to narrow down where he was, much less who was watching him. He seemed to have them fooled, but they also weren’t going anywhere. They were waiting for him to wake up.

Time to humourthem, then.

He kicked and mumbled, feigning coming to at the same time as he tested the strength of his restraints. Strong, but not impossible to slip, Dick determined. Around him the whispering grew louder.

After a few seconds, preparing himself for the stab of pain when the too-bright light hit his eyes, he pushed himself upright. He let out a startled yell, since whoever these people were, they’d captured Dick Grayson, not Nightwing. Better to play dumb.

“He is awake,” a cold male voice declared, somewhere above him.

“A dream,” Dick said, only slightly exaggerating the bleariness in his voice. “Where am I? Who are you?”

He looked up and saw white masks. Dozens of them. All the same, blank, owl face. It put ice down his spine. He had no idea who these loonies were. He’d fought crime in Gotham for half his life, and he had no idea what was going on.

“Richard Grayson,” the cold-voiced, white-masked man said, leaving a space between the syllables of Dick’s surname, “We have brought you to your roost. It is time for you to take your place as a Talon of this Court.”

Bird puns, bird puns…why can’t I think of any bird puns? Dick blamed the drugs. “It’s nice of you to keep a spot for me,” he said, though he wasn’t sure what this “Court” was, or what a “Talon” did - didn’t sound nice, though, kind of rip-and-tear, which just wasn’t Dick’s style. “But I need to be going…”

“You will not be going. You belong to us, Grayson, blood, bone, and soul. This time we will not let you go.”

He didn’t have to fake any of the shakiness in his voice. “What do you mean? This time?” It was looking less and less likely that he could get out of this without revealing Nightwing. And he still didn’t know what they were talking about. Or who they were. Or why they insisted on being so creepy.

He was ignored, and the speaker ordered, “Take him to the labyrinth.”

Strong hands seized his elbows. Dick lashed backwards reflexively, off target thanks to the bindings on his wrists and ankles, and yet connected with a crunch. He twisted, desperate to throw his captor off entirely, and ended up facing him -

- If that was human, anyway.

The man holding him looked a fair bit like him, actually, which was creepy enough. Same black hair, same cheekbones, same shaped eyes. But his skin was paper white, showing veins on his neck and near his eyes. The irises of those eyes were an unnatural yellow colour. Could be human. Could be a few degrees off.

Most importantly, Dick had broken the other man’s nose. Had broken it, past tense operative. Only a few drops of blood had fallen, and even as Dick watched, the nose itself wrenched back into place. Within seconds it was like Dick had never struck him.

Healing factor, then. A good one.

The man smiled, revealing perfect white teeth. Dick wanted to smash a few out on general principles.

Then the other man jerked his own head forward in a headbutt. Dick was the one reeling backwards then, his own nose bleeding and broken now. Taking advantage of the distraction, his opponent reached forward and applied a chokehold.

Dick twisted and flailed, but the other man was too strong, he just absorbed every blow no matter how painful - I hate healing factors - and before long Dick was unconscious again.

—

He came to, once more somewhere very bright, rather warm, and fairly humid. The splashing sound was still there, too. When he opened his eyes this time, he was surrounded by walls rather than owl masks. There was one small mercy: they’d untied him.

The sound echoed down at him. This is the labyrinth, Talon.

“I’m not your Talon,” Dick shouted back. The words dragged hoarsely out of his throat. He was assuming they could hear him. He was assuming they could see him. Escaping from this wasn't going to be easy. Especially with Mr Healing Factor as a guard.

You will be, was the confident reply. Once you have faced the labyrinth.

Oh, now that was a dilemma. His best chance of escaping and warning the family about these lunatics was by going through the labyrinth. Not even in question. He’d never get to warn Bruce about this new and exciting society of masked lunatics if he just sat on his ass here by this fountain. But going through the labyrinth was what they wanted him to do, and Dick so hated to oblige anyone who kidnapped him.

Aching already, nose burning and dripping blood, Dick stood. He had water, even if it was suspect. Never trust supplies your enemies give you. He had time to get out. He would get out.

And whatever it was they wanted from him, he wouldn’t give it to them. Simple as that. Well, beyond hanging out in the labyrinth for a few hours, but he didn’t have much choice about that.

He risked the water. He had to. As little as possible, Grayson, he thought, as he drank from his cupped hands. That’s the key. Only enough to keep yourself alive. Then he set off, into the blank white walls and crisp black shadows cast in the corners, trying to ignore the pounding headache and the monotony - and the hallucinations of his family and friends dead on the white, white floor.

Someone was watching him. Or several someones were watching him. The longer he walked, the more he heard their voices, ours, ours, ours. The sound of their voices came through clearly in spite of the ambient noise - hidden speakers, Dick would bet, expertly calibrated.

At first Dick whistled, just to block them out. Any tune he could remember. As his mouth grew dry and his throat grew sore, the more he heard them. You belong to us, Talon.

“You were bred for this,” a real voice said, and Dick couldn’t help the relief. The voice belonged to the man who had choked him and brought him to this goddamned maze. “My great-grandson. You will be foremost amongst the Talons.”

“What do you want?” Dick asked. He was too overwhelmed for games. He felt increasingly claustrophobic, trapped, the warm humid air pressing in close. He couldn’t sleep with all the light, couldn’t look around without hallucinating the broken bodies of the people he cared about. The drugs in the water were messing with his mind, making everything drift together and spin. And his broken nose really hurt.

“To bring you an offer,” the man said. “Fight me, and you may eat.”

“More drugs?” Dick said. “No thanks. Pass.”

“Suit yourself,” the man said. “I will come again later.”

Dick watched him go, up and over the wall and breaking line of sight before Dick could think to track him. When he was sure the man - a Talon, had to be - was gone, he huddled as close to the wall as he could get and tried to sleep in his own shadow. Between the pain, the drugs, the light, and the hunger, it didn’t go so well. That, and the constant litany of you are ours, Talon whispering in his head.

He had been forced to drink three more times before the Talon came again, and Dick was on his last nerve. “The same rules,” the Talon said. “Fight me, and you will eat. Refuse and you will starve.”

“Okay,” Dick said, and threw a punch.

He was too tired to hold back, he realised. Everything in him was screaming to put the Talon down hard and fast. The Talon was good, though. Not as good at hand-to-hand as Dick (when he wasn’t being tortured, anyway), but very good with his clawed gloves and knives, both of which scratched Dick up badly. Then there was the healing factor. In Dick’s current state he couldn’t overcome it.

Dick took a second shallow, stinging rake across the left shoulder and snapped. The heel of his hand came up to the Talon’s nose, again, but this time in the classic move designed to drive shards of bone into the brain.

It connected, and the Talon fell. So did Dick. No, no, no… He knew, beyond a doubt, that the blow had been lethal, he’d broken The Rule. He’d broken The Rule.

Panic had just started to set in when the Talon rose with a smile. “A good strike, my descendant. As promised, you will eat.”

Healing factor, Dick thought numbly. It didn’t do anything for his heart rate or his smashed-apart thoughts.

A pouch of something was produced from somewhere, Dick didn’t know where, and he didn’t care either. All that mattered was getting the most out of his meal, even if it was probably drugged. Dry bread had never tasted so good. The voices were pleased with him too, murmuring ours with an appreciative tone.

None of it helped him sleep, though, nor find a way out. After a while longer resting - Dick had no idea how long he’d been down here - he got up again to keep searching.

Left, the voices told him. Running on automatic, Dick turned left. As instructed.

—

He fought the Talon twice more, both times receiving bread for his victory. Victory he had had, both times. The third time, the Talon gave him an apple as well. He had ripped out the Talon’s throat for that treat. He wasn’t sure if he’d thought of the man’s healing factor as he did.

The wounds he’d been given had scabbed over, though he could feel the heat and tenderness of infection in some of them. Everything hurt. He couldn’t think straight. He knew he was getting weaker and weaker.

The light and the voices were the only constants. You are doing well, Talon, they told him, as he followed their directions through the labyrinth thoughtlessly. Very well indeed. Or, at least, they told him that in between bouts of telling him that they owned him. He passed out to that periodically. It couldn’t be called sleep.

There was something wrong about the praise, and yet he couldn’t put his finger on it. He was pretty sure his name wasn’t Talon, for instance. Pretty sure, not positive. They just kept calling him that. His real name was something else, something he didn’t even dare think in case the voices heard him, and he answered to someone else.

That someone would be disappointed in him, he was aware. He wasn’t escaping on his own, and he’d used killing blows. His real master disapproved of killing.

There is another in the labyrinth, Talon, the voices told him. Hunt him down and you will be ready to leave and take your rightful place in our service.

Leave? Yes. Yes, he wanted to leave. The thought brought more energy. Not a lot, he was all but tapped out, but enough to move again.

He couldn’t say how long he walked before he heard the shouts. “Let me out,” “where is this place,” “who are you,” and the like. We are the Court of Owls, the voices told him. He hadn’t known that. Now he just had to remember it, remember it for his true master. The one who lived in the cave. You are our Talon. Hunt him down.

He could do that.

Even sick, drugged, and exhausted, he was light on his feet. More than a match for whoever it was down here in the labyrinth with him. He followed behind the footsteps, waiting for his target to let down his guard. If the target was healthier than he was, he didn’t want to risk a fair fight.

He crept up on the target, a man of middle age and middle weight, alone and afraid. Before he’d collapsed, his tread had been heavy, and his harsh panting was utterly unlike the whispering of the voices or the sound of the drugged fountain.

Tell him, the voice instructed him. You do our bidding, Talon. You have always been meant to do our bidding. Our mark is in your blood, Gray Son. Tell him.

“Tell him what?” he asked. His voice was harsh and unfamiliar in his own ears, but soft. Too soft for his target to hear him.

His name is Stephen Reilly, and the Court of Owls has sentenced him to die.

He could do that. To get out, he could do that. He walked closer. The target, the man, was huddled into a shadow. “Stephen Reilly,” he said, “The Court of Owls has sentenced you to die.”

To his shock, the man shrieked. It sent another stab of pain into his already very sore head. He winced, and fell over as the man leapt for him in a desperate flailing attempt to fight him off.

But he hadn’t been attacking…

As with the Talon earlier, he was beyond holding back. He shoved the man off him roughly, struggling for the upper hand, gaining it at the cost of another few bruises. The other man was less tired, less sick. He was stronger and faster. Reilly’s skin felt cold beneath his own feverish hands. No killing, the thought came, in a voice that sounded like his own, but the voice of the Court said, kill him and you may leave.

It hurt. Everything hurt. His head especially, and every time the man shouted it caused another stab of pain.

He just wanted to go home.

He slammed the man’s head into the floor as hard as he could, and felt the body go limp under him.

Now he could smell blood and excrement along with his own unwashed body. He stared dumbly down at - at the corpse. Someone in his head said, you broke the rule!, only he couldn’t remember what the rule was. One of his master’s, he thought, and he couldn’t tell the Court about his master. Or was the Court his master?

They kept saying so. He didn't quite believe them.

Well done, Talon. You will be rewarded for this.

“I want to leave,” he said. “You promised I could leave.”

“And leave the labyrinth you shall,” the Talon’s voice said, appearing from behind him. There were no shadows to hide in here, but more than enough corners. The Talon dragged him to his feet, since the scuffle that ended with the death of the Court’s enemy had utterly drained him. He needed the Talon’s support to stay standing. “We have much work to do.”

With the Talon’s assistance, he was led into a familiar room. There were coffins in the floor. One stood open.

At the sight of it he found some fight. “No,” he said, and pushed at the Talon. He didn’t want to go into an even more confined space. He pushed as hard as he could, but the Talon wasn’t like the man he’d - he’d killed - the Talon was stronger. And could heal fast.

The Talon’s grip was merciless as he was led right past the open coffin. “Not today, Talon,” he said. “Today is special.”

Special, he said, and the Talon (the other Talon? Was he Talon? He couldn’t keep track) took him to a room that looked like a doctor’s surgery, with a masked woman and a masked man waiting inside. They cut off his clothing, what had survived his encounters with the other Talon anyway, and started to sponge him down. He hated sponge baths, he knew that, but right now the cool water felt good. They cleaned the wounds he’d received, and laid him down on a gurney.

For the moment, this was all right. He was sick and hungry and tired and now naked and alone in his own head too, he was still drugged and paranoid and under the lights, but he was also clean. And out of the labyrinth.

He hissed as the masked duo pressed down on his shoulders. It aggravated the tender, infected scratches. Then they strapped him down. Arms and legs and waist and forehead. Out of the corner of his eye he could see low-gauge needles filled with something unidentifiable.

Panic flooded through him, worse even than when he’d killed that man. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t move.

“You will want to be still for this,” the other Talon said.

“Open your mouth,” the masked woman said.

He didn’t, but the masked man prised his jaws open anyway. He stuck something inside, seeking one of the molars, and -

- Pain. A surprising amount, even in his daze. Just touching a tooth, a healthy tooth at that, shouldn’t send agony racing through every cell. It felt like every cell. The broken nose, the infected cuts, the headache from too much light and too little sleep, the pain in his gut from lack of food, all his bruises, that pain was wiped out in the flood of new feeling.

Words went. The pain stayed.

Chapter 2: Servant

Chapter Text

This is getting old.

He returned to consciousness annoyed. Then he realised he had the energy to feel annoyed. Then he realised that physically, he felt better than he had in a long time. Some habit held his eyes closed, while he tried to centre himself.

At some point in time, he couldn’t quite remember when or how, his left knee had been injured. He’d recovered with full mobility, but it was usually a little stiff and a bit sore when he first woke up. Now it wasn’t. Actually, nowhere was stiff or sore, and he was still strapped to the gurney.

He wasn’t even chafed. And hadn’t his nose been broken?

It was hard to recall. Everything was hard to recall. Thoughts slipped away as he grasped for them. He tried to remember what happened, but something inside told him it would be a bad idea. A catastrophically bad idea. Don’t think about it. The labyrinth, he could remember the labyrinth. Some of it. He couldn’t feel the harsh lights beating down on his eyes any more, though he could hear dripping and splashing. It had been everywhere. The voice of the Court wasn’t in his head. It made him feel…lost. He could taste blood in his mouth, almost overpowering.

He opened his eyes. Someone said, unnecessarily, again, “He wakes.”

Get some new material, guys. The ominous act wears thin real fast.

Head strapped down, all he could see was the ceiling. Textured white plaster, not so stark as the labyrinth. He could hear two people breathing. Neither let him go, but one ratcheted the gurney up so that he could see. It was strangely loud.

A man stood before him. A familiar man. The Talon from the maze, the one he had killed to earn food. “Talon,” he said, “Are you calm?”

No, he wasn’t, the longer he was awake the more he thought there was something wrong, he was in the wrong place with the wrong people, there was something wrong with him. He could feel his heart try to beat harder and fail, its rhythm perfectly steady in spite of all common sense and experience telling him it should speed up. “Yes,” he said. He tried to spit, just to clear the taste of blood from his mouth, and was surprised at the sheer amount of the stuff in his saliva. It felt like his mouth was coated in it.

“You bit your tongue off during the procedure,” the Talon said. “It is not uncommon.”

But he still had his tongue. He couldn’t exactly grow a new one. What was going on? The steadiness of his heartbeat and breathing was unnerving. The fight-or-flight response should have kicked in by now. He lost control, gave in to the psychological instinct to fight against his restraints, to flee from whatever was going on, and started to thrash without the aid of adrenaline.

The Talon stepped forward smartly and cut his throat from ear to ear.

Immediately his air cut off, whistling through his opened windpipe. Blood welled out of his mouth. Dimly, he felt blood spill down his chest too, hot arterial blood, spurting out in fatal heartbeat bursts. He blacked out.

What he did not do was die. After some time, maybe seconds, maybe minutes, he woke again, the bleeding stopped, his heart beating again, his breath returned. Both to that perfect steady rhythm. All he could taste was copper, to be sure, but he was alive and the mortal wound was sealed. The shock, the death, forced him back to stillness.

There is definitely something wrong with me, a faint voice whispered in the back of his mind.

“You are truly one of us now,” the Talon said. “Talon.”

“What does that mean?” he asked, voice hoarse, afraid of the answer.

“You are the means through which the Court will deliver its sentences,” the Talon said, matter-of-fact. “None may challenge the Court’s rule. If you will stay calm, it is time for further training, so you may serve our masters as you have always been intended. Our Night approaches, and we will have need of you.”

The silent other in the room unstrapped him then, and placed a bundle of clothing at the end of the gurney. It was dark grey, and he suspected it was identical to what the other Talon wore. “Okay,” he said, using his newly freed hands to wipe the fresh blood from his chin. No stiffness. No pain. No adrenaline. This was all very wrong. “Okay. Who are you?”

The other Talon smiled, thin and sharp. “My name is William Cobb,” he said. “I am your great-grandfather. You are Richard, the Gray Son of Gotham, our instrument of balance.”

That answered his next question. Who he was. He had a name, not Richard but something else, that he’d placed just out of reach in the back of his mind. Just like he knew he didn’t belong to the Court. He served another master, one who was ignorant of the threat the Court posed.

Father, he grasped. A memory. He served his father, him and - brothers? Brothers, yes. And a sister. He couldn’t (wouldn’t) remember names or faces. It was something to hold on to. Someone else had prior claim on him.

No matter what the Court had done to him.

Some part of him was still shuddering in horror. A large part. Ordinary humans didn’t heal slashed-open throats. He wasn’t human any more. They’d made him a monster. In form, at least. Now came the part where they tried to make him their monster. He knew that like he knew - knew the labyrinth. That was what he knew. Nothing else.

What he had to do was endure. If the Court considered him theirs, believed him theirs, they would let him out eventually, and then he could return to his family. His real family. Perhaps that family would even seek him out before then. He could only hope that they would be willing to take him back. Either way, he still had to learn as much as he could of the Court and tell them everything he learned.

For the meantime, he knew it was dangerous to pretend to be what he was not, but he didn’t see much of a choice. He was still the Court’s captive, and, little as he liked to believe it, they were not entirely wrong when they called him their creature.

Neither of the others turned away as he clad himself in a Talon’s uniform. He wasn’t a person anymore, he realised. He was a thing to them. He didn’t need privacy, wasn’t worth turning away from to spare his modesty. The clothing felt wrong against his skin somehow.

“Come,” William Cobb said. Ever the obedient servant (ever, for now), the new Talon obeyed.

—

It transpired that Talon was a far better fighter than the Court had initially thought he was. Certain patterns of movement had already been worn into his muscles. “Being Talon grants no skill,” Cobb explained. “Little extra strength, little extra speed. It grants healing, so that the Court’s enemies cannot strike you down. It also allows you to train more and harder than mortals. There is no excuse for lack of improvement.”

The Talon had been given knives. They fit his hands perfectly. His soft, uncalloused hands that felt as if they’d never gripped a hard object before.

Mostly what he had done with his new gifts was slice his fingers open, again and again. It had not been accidental. Each time he had stared in horrified fascination as the cuts sealed almost too fast for him to bleed. He strongly suspected that no new callus would form on his hands, abrasion and irritation from normal use healing too fast and too well for the toughened skin to form.

“If you do not stop that I will pin your hands to the table and you may watch that heal,” Cobb said. “Attend.”

Talon did so. Cobb fought differently to humans, relying on his healing factor to absorb heavy blows and create openings. That difference only became more acute as they went from fighting with fists to fighting with knives. Sharp knives. The Court did not believe in practice weapons.

Nor did they have a need for them, Talon thought. He’d just been gutted. Literally gutted. His intestines were now on the outside of his body. Cobb had accepted a deep stab to his shoulder to inflict the wound.

“This is also training,” Cobb said. “You will survive this. You must act knowing that you will survive this.”

The healing factor did not stop pain. He was appreciating that now. Oh, was he appreciating that. Couldn’t have mixed some morphine into whatever they pumped me full of? Would that have been too much trouble?

And Cobb was still staring at him. Waiting for him to do something.

Hesitantly, Talon grabbed the coils of viscera, and shoved them roughly back inside himself. It eased some of the pain, strangely (less stress on his organs, perhaps), and he felt a disconcerting slithering sensation inside himself akin to nausea as the replaced intestines were pulled back into working order. It took several excruciating minutes.

It was so wrong that he could only stand there, shaking, for a full minute after he’d been restored. What had they done to him?

Once he was done shaking, but before he could recover enough to block a blow, Cobb gutted him again. He struck deeper and wider, spilling more internal organs. “You are too slow,” he said, uncaring of the pain Talon was in. Which was a lot. “Wounds are nothing to you now. Death is only a delay. Either take advantage of the opening or do what you can to speed recovery, and move on.”

So again, Talon scooped up trailing internal organs and stuffed them back inside his opened guts like he was a Thanksgiving turkey. This time, when Cobb struck, he blocked it, Cobb’s knife glancing off his hasty, weak defense and sinking deep into his arm rather than anywhere that would have killed him had he still been human. Even so, the wound Cobb had inflicted would have benched him (from what?) for weeks if he hadn’t been whatever he was now. The flaps of his torn, blood-soaked clothing squelched obscenely and slapped against his unscarred stomach as he moved.

What a waste of a uniform, that faint inner voice said. Even that sounded shaky, the attempt at humour weak.

They resumed sparring in earnest after that, Cobb apparently judging that he had learned his lesson well enough for the moment. In the following hours, Talon learned that in the Court, only a fatal wound was considered enough to end a match. Disabling wounds did not disable. If he tried to inflict them, as muscle memory guided him to, Cobb would ignore it and strike back in as ghastly a fashion as he could. Talon was gutted twice more that session. He lost his nose - I guess it’s ‘a’ nose now that I’ve got a new one - and an eye in a wound meant to disfigure rather than kill. Needless to say, it did neither. That paled in significance once Cobb nearly severed his right arm completely, and even that seemed minor after Cobb cut his throat again, this time down to the spine.

All of it healed without a scratch or a mark. It often took minutes, but there was no doubt that no matter what struck Talon down, he would get back up. Even teeth regenerated, pushing themselves back up out of a shattered jaw. Not how I thought I’d get my dental work done. Goodbye, cavities!

He quickly came to hate the feeling of healing from a mortal wound more than anything else. It was wrong. He should be dead. Every time he came to after dying, every time he cast a fully regenerated eye over one of his own severed extremities discarded like so much meat, he was reminded of what he was now.

It was so easy to believe he was what they said he was after pulling something sharp and pointy out of his femoral artery and watching the wound mend itself, when he knew the person he’d been would have bled out then and there.

“We have tested the limits of regeneration, of course,” Cobb explained. “A Talon can survive even decapitation, under certain conditions.”

Talon thought of what the testing must have entailed, but did not shudder. Cobb disapproved of any display of weakness, and Cobb’s disapproval was expressed through the infliction of pain. The part of Talon that did not belong to the Court demanded further explanation, though, and asked, “What conditions might those be?”

“If a decapitated Talon is reunited with their head within perhaps half an hour, and left undisturbed to heal properly, or if both head and body are frozen within a similar time frame and then allowed to heal. Otherwise, decapitation is one of the few things that will prove fatal to you now. As will sufficiently intense explosions. Avoid them.”

Talon would, but he remembered.

He eventually started to use lethal strikes against Cobb. He had before, in the labyrinth, but now he decided to use them, rather than flailing in desperation. It wasn’t as if he was going to kill Cobb that way.

Throat. Chest. Eye. Femoral artery, which they counted as a killing strike though no Talon could bleed to death. (Though they drained him of blood twice and made him fight - dizzy, aching, and short of breath - while he replenished it. Being hung up like a slaughtered animal to bleed himself dry was worse than the fighting.) Again and again, with a variety of bladed weapons. And every time he made a killing blow, Cobb said, “Well done, Talon,” with pride in his voice.

Down here he wasn’t sure how much time passed. It was a long time. It felt like forever since Talon had seen the sun or the stars or the lights of Gotham. He missed the sky. Eventually he tired, though as Cobb had said, he had trained long and hard, any injuries he sustained healing seconds or minutes after he received them. The tiredness he felt was all mental.

Cobb took him back to the bright white room full of coffins, and led him to the one standing open. “This is yours, Talon,” he said. “You will be stored here while not in use.”

No!

Memory might still be elusive but his visceral hatred for even the idea of being confined to that small dark space was completely instinctual, though not even that roused the fight-or-flight response. Talon balked.

Balking was punished the same way everything else was punished: death, swift and merciless. For the - lost count, too many, fifth? - time since Talon had woken up no longer really human on the gurney, he blacked out to the feeling of blood pouring down his front.

After that there was nothing but cold and darkness. For a very long time.

It wasn’t death, but he couldn’t move, not even to breathe. His heartbeat stopped entirely. No way to tell how much time was passing. Nothing to do or see or even hear. Cold and darkness. He would have screamed until his throat bled, if his throat could bleed for long. He would have screamed until he died of dehydration, if he could die of dehydration. If he could move even the few muscles required to scream. He could not even manage to cry.

He didn’t know how long it was before they opened the coffin, but he almost wept with relief when the ice in his limbs thawed and the coffin opened. Even if it was to the sight of all those blank owl masks that had once upon a time thrown him into the labyrinth. He was pathetically grateful to them for letting him out.

“Talon,” one of the masked figures said. “We require you.”

Talon had been briefed on protocol by Cobb, some time before he’d been put in the coffin. It was so hard to remember. He stood tall and still, waiting for instruction. Given a choice he would rather run and climb, stretch muscles that somehow hadn’t cramped from the long period of inactivity, but he didn’t have a choice. Besides, anything not to be put back in the dark and the cold.

“We have brought an enemy to our labyrinth. Her name is Anna Worthen. We require you to deliver her sentence.”

Death, he understood. He’d do it, no matter what that faint voice was saying about the rule. Anything not to go back into the coffin. Anything.

Even the labyrinth. Even kill.

The labyrinth was less scary now that he was Talon. Nothing was scary, compared to lying frozen in the coffin. He leapt from wall to wall, rather than being confined to the ground. They’d changed the light so he had shadows to hide in, stark against the white of the walls. There were no drugs for him now, so he could think. It was almost…fun. No, it was fun. He felt a smile stretch across his face, behind the mask and goggles he’d been given.

He perched on a vantage point and settled down to wait, watching and listening for movement. Light and warmth and something to do. So much better than before. He wished he wasn’t grateful.

Not my idea of a vacation, but it’ll do for the moment.

The innermost voice of his mind was still unsteady, but Talon had protected it. He knew that if he hoped to escape this place and return to his family, he had to protect that voice in his head. That voice was who he was before all this.

When he saw movement, he dropped down, silent even on boots that still didn’t feel quite right on his feet. However long he’d trained with Cobb hadn’t changed that. They can get knives to fit my hands, but not boots to fit my feet. Figures. Three more jumps took him a long way towards the target stumbling through the maze. One more jump would bring him down right behind her.

He hesitated. Should he?

He’d been tasked to deliver the target’s sentence. He was Talon, it was his duty. He was also not Talon, and his true master would not want him to kill. Why did things have to be so complicated?

Talon perched on the top of the wall for a very long moment. Then he decided.

Anything but the coffin.

His master, his real master, might not want him to kill, but if Talon stayed frozen in a box somewhere - like the catch of the day - that master might be in danger. His brothers and sister too. Better to kill than to be frozen again. His real master would understand his decision, and if he did not…he still might not freeze Talon for the failing. It was worth the risk many times over.

A few running steps. A leap. He landed in front of his target. “Anna Worthen,” he said, “The Court of Owls has sentenced you to die.”

Before he could think further on it, he drew a knife and stabbed her in the throat. No thinking. None. If he didn’t think, he couldn’t hear his own voice screaming in the back of his mind. What have I done?

Only what he needed to. He had to warn his master, even if it meant…this. Above all, he had to stay out of that coffin.

Chapter 3: Missing Persons

Chapter Text

It was an hour past midnight when Jason heard a deliberate rap on the window of his top floor apartment. For most people that might have been alarming, but whether he liked it or not, he was a former Bat (some would say once a Bat, always a Bat), and the family was constitutionally incapable of using doors. If they decided to drop by, Jason counted himself lucky that they knocked at all and didn’t just break in through the skylights. Literally through the skylights.

“Open up, Hood,” Red Robin snapped. “I know you’re in there. It’s urgent.”

“All right, all right,” Jason said. “Keep your tights on.”

He opened the window. Red Robin jumped through and immediately took off his mask. Damn, this was personal business then, not a case. “Bruce and Dick are both missing,” Tim said. All business. The Replacement always was when he put that suit on.

Jason rolled his eyes. Hi Jason, how are you, hope you didn’t get too hurt on your last mission, New York’s been good. “Dick’s probably using the wrong phone again, and Bruce can look after himself.”

“There’s been no sign of Bruce for a week,” Tim said, regardless. “Alfred called. He doesn’t call for just anything. And Dick’s been missing longer. Babs was the last person to hear from him, a bit more than three weeks ago. She said he’d be travelling with the circus, but he isn’t there, and they haven’t seen him since they stopped in Gotham. Nobody has.”

Tim was right about Alfred, and it really wasn’t like Dick. Goldie might have about six phones and miscellaneous other communicators, but he usually answered at least two of them any given month.

He couldn’t care less about Bruce. He couldn’t.

“Got any ideas?” he asked.

“Not many. Alfred said Bruce was heading down to the sewers to investigate a case and never came back. Killer Croc’s in Blackgate at the moment, so it’s not like there should be anything too troublesome for him down there.”

“You think he tripped and broke his leg?” Jason half-sneered.

Tim ignored that. “It had something to do with the explosion a few weeks ago. New players, it’s not linked to any active files. I know Dick was working on a lead on that case too.”

That was worrying. “You think they got nabbed?”

“I can’t be completely sure.”

From the Replacement, super-detective junior that he was, that was almost as good as a yes.

“What do you want me to do about it, then?”

“Help me look for them! What else?” He sighed. “I was just on my way to check the sewers near where Alfred said Bruce vanished. Damian’s not talking to me. I’d be surprised if he wasn’t looking for Dick though. He’s been trying to hide it, but he’s frantic.”

Jason snorted. The demon bird would be looking for Goldie. “I’ll come with you, then. Who could resist the opportunity to traipse around in the sewers? Just let me suit up first.” Replacement was less likely to try and kill him, making him the lesser of two evils. Even Red Hood didn’t like the idea of standing between a distraught Demon Bird and his precious older brother/preferred Batman/morality pet.

He didn’t like the idea of standing near that conflict either, come to think of it. And if the brat was involved, there would be a conflict. Damian wasn’t what anyone would call conciliatory.

Red Robin reported to Alfred what was going on, and after that Jason and the Replacement headed for the sewers. Unlike certain other members of the family, Tim wasn’t the chattiest person around, and Jason could appreciate that in a partner. It was slightly worrying right at the moment, with Red Robin also low-key panickingabout Batman and Nightwing. He was in full fret. When it came right down to it, and the family being in danger, he wasn’t all that much better than Robin. A bit less inclined to start stabbing people. Jason could appreciate that too.

Unsurprisingly, the sewers were sewers. There was no sign of the Bat down there. After a whole week, that was what you could expect. If Red Robin had been expecting a nice brightly lit trail he was delusional.

Nobody had sharper eyes, though. Just when Jason was ready to give up, the Replacement hissed and said, “There.”

‘There’ turned out to be a few scratches in the stonework. “Batarang marks?”

Tim laid his own ‘rangs across the mark. It was the same gauge. “Yes. He fought here.”

Jason peered at them more closely, then got out his own knife and dragged it across the stonework. “Not fresh marks,” he said. A foot or so away, there was a chip in the stone, with slightly rounded edges. “Not old, either.” Maybe a week. Which they already knew. Peachy. Couldn’t the old man just scratch out ‘Batman was here’ with the date underneath? He flicked on enhanced vision in his cowl and started inspecting the sewer walls at throwing height. “There are more marks down that way.”

They tracked a few more scratches before the trail ran out. “I can’t tell who won,” Red Robin said.

“It wasn’t Batman,” Jason said. “If he had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

But they kept going anyway, since it was the best lead they had. “Hang on, what’s that?” Jason said, spotting a lump that didn’t look like the usual detritus. Could be a homeless person. Could be a dead homeless person. Either way, worth investigating.

The Replacement started. “That’s him. Hood, that’s him!”

They drew closer. It was. “What the hell happened?” Jason barked.

“Court of Owls,” Batman groaned, rolling over. He was missing quite a bit of his uniform, the cowl smashed to reveal one glazed, red-rimmed blue eye, and a week’s worth of stubble was visible on his jawline. He was bleeding from half a dozen places too. “Just got out.”

“We need to get him back to the cave,” Red Robin said. “Hood, will you help?”

Jason didn’t care. He didn’t. “Fine.”

He was taller and stronger than Red Robin, almost as tall and bulky as Bruce. So it was him who had to do most of the work hauling Batman back to the car Alfred deployed. “I’ll meet you back at the cave,” Jason said.

The Replacement shook his head. “You drive. I’ll get Robin and we can both go in the front door.”

Ugh. “Fine.” A car trip with Bruce, both of them smelling like sewer, just what he wanted. At least it didn’t look like Batman was going to be real chatty either.

The first thing Bruce did once he was in the passenger seat was fumble around for a bottle of water. He sipped at it steadily, which was Batman for I am absolutely parched. “Not many places to drink in the sewer, huh?” Jason said. Hello Jason, nice to see you, thanks for rescuing me from the sewers where my enemies left me to die.

“Only had drugged water for the last week.”

“Yeah, about that. Who caught you?” Who on earth could hold Batman for a week? Even with drugs. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do.

“Later,” Bruce said. “In the cave. I don’t want to have to explain this twice.”

“Whatever.” Figured that he wouldn’t get the inside info. At least he could drive Bruce’s cars as fast as he liked now. Guilt-free. Next to him, Batman leaned back in his seat, obviously at the end of his rope. He finished one bottle of water and started on another. Jason took pity and gave him the last protein bar in his jacket pockets.

Just as they pulled into the cave, Red Robin called. “Found Robin. Returning now.”

“Understood,” Jason said.

He stood around awkwardly while Alfred fussed over Bruce. Batman, of course, insisted they test his blood straight away for the drugs that had been used on him. The old butler spared Jason a smile but he’d clearly been almost as frantic as the demon bird and Red Robin. Daddy goes missing and everyone falls apart.

Once Bruce was patched up, Alfred insisted that Bruce shower. “And you, Master Jason, must change. I still have clothing for you here.”

That surprised him and didn’t surprise him all in one. “Does it still fit?” he asked.

“I took the liberty of purchasing it a few weeks ago, just in case.”

Jason barked a laugh. “Thanks, Alfred.” He had to admit, it would be nice to have the sewer stench off.

When Bruce emerged from the shower, looking a lot better than he had in the car, the first thing he asked was, “Has anyone seen Dick?” Of course it was. That was as unsurprising as Alfred being prepared for Jason to actually visit.

“Nope,” Jason said. “Replacement says he’s been missing longer than you.”

Bruce frowned. “That’s not like him.”

“We know,” Tim said, making a very well-timed entrance, Damian following in his wake and scowling up a storm. “The rent on his apartment in Bludhaven is paid up until the end of the year, he’s not picking up any of his phones or comms, he hasn’t checked his email. After Haly’s Circus stopped in Gotham, he vanished off the face of the planet.”

The demon brat said, “I demand you let me go find this Haly’s Circus, Father. They will answer my questions.”

The lines got deeper in Bruce’s forehead. “He was working the same case I was. The Court could have got to him.”

“And done what?” Jason asked. “You still haven’t said what it was happened to you.”

“I made a mistake,” Bruce said. “The Court of Owls is real.”

“Like from the nursery rhyme?”

Jason only rarely noticed it, but Bruce and Tim frowned almost exactly the same way. For two people who weren’t related they could be awfully similar. No wonder Tim annoyed him so much sometimes. With Damian next to them it reached seriously creepy levels. He needed Cass just for some glare variety, but Cass was off somewhere on a mission. Prague, last he’d heard, unable to be contacted, but leaving her regular reports at their drops.

“Exactly like them,” Bruce said, deadly serious. “Right down to the Talon coming for my head.”

Damian bristled. “I do not know of this nursery rhyme.”

“It’s a Gotham one,” Jason told him. “Blah, blah, real rulers of the city, constantly watching, mouth off to them and they’ll kill you, blah blah blah. Your grandpa would probably approve of the sentiment.”

“If not the competition,” the Replacement added dryly.

“They led me to a maze,” Bruce said. “They put their enemies in there for sport. And for training their servants. Metahumans, manufactured somehow. Slightly enhanced hearing, greatly enhanced vision, especially night vision, and most importantly, an extremely potent healing factor. Lethal wounds slow them down for minutes only, at most.”

“You think they put Dick in there?” Jason asked. It…really sucked…to imagine Goldie trapped in a maze like that. Batman’s favourite wasn’t a training exercise for meta-freaks, for god’s sake. At the very least he deserved a better death than that.

Bruce had never looked older as he said, “That’s what I’m afraid of, yes.”

—

In the end, Jason stayed for the traditional family meal of dinner-breakfast in the Cave. With everyone back home safe and sound except Dick, Alfred bustled off to express his emotions by cooking every breakfast food known to man.

“Not the waffles,” Tim groaned, and Jason shuddered at the thought. The one food Alfred couldn’t cook.

Jason tried to leave, but Bruce glared at him. So did Alfred, from over a ridiculously laden meal tray. That put paid to that idea. The bacon was worth staying for, though. Just. And if you soaked the waffles in enough syrup they almost became edible. “Tell me everything about Dick’s disappearance,” Bruce ordered Tim, as they sat around the Cave’s big worktable and ate.

Well, staying for the info might have been worth it, too.

“What I know I mostly got from Babs,” Tim said. “Dick was attacked by someone calling himself Saiko -“

“-Seriously?” Jason interrupted. “Saiko? That’s so nineties.”

Tim looked like he might agree with that analysis, but Damian -tt-ed and said, “Get on with it, Drake. It does not matter from which pits of naming trends the villain dredged his name.” Bruce looked like he agreed, which just went to show that when it came to Dick’s wellbeing, neither Wayne had a sense of humour.

Raising an eyebrow, Tim continued. “Anyway, even though Nightwing fought him, Saiko said that he wanted to kill Richard Grayson. Dick didn’t file a detailed report on it, more’s the pity, but I don’t think he was taking it very seriously.”

“Or he was taking it very seriously,” Bruce said. “He’s deliberately left out details when a case was important to him before.”

Tim scarfed down his scrambled eggs and literally made a note of that. Jason was starting to suspect he was the only member of the family with a shred of sanity. “Then he went to investigate Haly’s Circus,” Tim said. “Or at least that was his last recorded step. Somewhere between his apartment and leaving Gotham, he just plain vanished. Babs was focusing on the people he knew in the circus; she thinks the only way someone could have got to him so cleanly is if he trusted them.”

“But she got nowhere,” Bruce concluded. “The circus closed ranks against the outsider.”

“Exactly. I agree with her. Dick was probably taken by someone he trusted. Outside of our circles, the only people Dick trusts are circus.” He tapped a few buttons on his Bat-work phone, and added, “The circus’ owner, Haly himself, died a few days after Dick disappeared, the same day as Haly’s storage holdings burned down. Haly had been suffering from cancer, but the timing is…suspicious.”

“Understatement,” Jason grunted. “That sounds like murder and arson on top of kidnapping. And Dickiebird’s supposed to be the Robin without a dark and tragic past.”

“Foolishness,” Damian said. “His parents were murdered before his eyes when he was eight.”

“Yeah, but until then he had it pretty good.”

“You call the life of itinerant circus performers good, Todd?”

“Roof over his head, at least two meals a day, job satisfaction -“ loving parents “- yeah, sure I do, brat.”

“Enough,” Bruce said, quelling the brewing argument instantly. “Fighting will not help us find Dick.”

“Oh, like you’re helping to the best of your ability,” Jason said. “You’re hiding something. So damn certain it’s the Court of f*cking Owls, the f*cking nursery rhyme brigade, that took Dick. What makes you so sure, huh, Bruce? They leave a signed note, or do you just know something we don’t?”

Bruce glared. He was totally hiding something. Jason knew that look.

“Bruce,” Tim said, “We want to help.”

Even the Batman could only look so intimidating with dark shadows under his eyes and a half-finished plate of full English breakfast in front of him. It wasn’t working. Not on them, any of them, under these circ*mstances. After a few seconds, Bruce caved. Usually it would have taken him a whole minute, maybe even two. “During my escape from the Court, I found the place where they keep their Talons. In refrigerated coffins at the exit to their labyrinth. There was an open one with Dick’s name on it.”

A coffin. A f*cking coffin. Jason was going to have nightmares tonight, that was for sure. Suddenly, Dick being thrown in the maze and used as practice for whatever it was these Talons were supposed to be sounded like the kinder fate.

“He wasn’t there, though,” Damian asserted, obviously distressed. “Grayson wasn’t there, Father, was he?”

“No, Damian. He wasn’t.”

And if that was supposed to be reassuring, it was a f*cking failure. sh*t. There was so much space between ’not in creepy-ass coffin’ and ‘actually fine’ it wasn’t funny. Jason wished Dick was on one of his random jaunts to random places. He did that every so often. If he walked back through that door Jason was going to punch him in the mouth. Or the dick. That’d be appropriate. “I’ll talk to the circus,” he said abruptly. “Sign on as a worker or something.” They’d be more likely to speak in front of him and his unpolished Gotham accent than any of the others.

“I’ll chase the paper trail,” Tim said.

“Damian and I will look into the Court more directly,” Bruce said. “We will find him.”

—

Bruce had said that. He believed it. Not finding Dick was not an option. But the Court of Owls were…problematic. Secretive. Their Talons were extremely dangerous, their regenerative capacity frightening. Presumably creating and conditioning them was either financiallly prohibitive, time-intensive, or unreliable, possibly all three, or there would be far more. It was even possible the masters of the Court feared their own assassins.

After a week of effort, he’d finally captured one. The sight of the Talon pinned upright to the backboard, frozen, with his eyes open, was disconcerting. Not least because the man looked very much like Dick. The same line of nose and cheekbone, the same thick black hair. He didn’t know whether the man’s pale skin was natural, but the flat, cold, yellow eyes with their highly responsive pupils certainly weren’t.

“Will he be able to tell us where Grayson is?” Damian asked him anxiously.

“I don’t know,” Bruce said. “With luck.”

How he hated to rely on luck. But what could induce a Talon to speak? He didn’t know if they could feel pain, which might render a threat to inflict it useless. He sincerely doubted that the Talon would tell him out of the goodness of his heart.

There was one thing he could do that he didn’t need the Talon’s cooperation for. He took samples. Blood, hair, skin. The skin did not regenerate in the freezing conditions. No doctor would call it ethical, but he had to know. Maybe they could be cured. Failing that, there might be some easier way to neutralise them than freezing. Bruce didn’t think himself capable of testing the Talon to destruction. Dead already or not, the cruelty that would take…

Perhaps even more so because he also planned to run a DNA test. This man, with his resemblance to Dick, could explain the Court’s interest in Bruce’s son without saying a word.

He knew Damian had seen it too. His youngest refused to look the Talon in the face. He missed Dick. Bruce sent him upstairs to do something civilian. Anything civilian. He knew full well Damian would only go comb through police reports again, since trying to find his missing brother was “fully consistent with civilian activity, Father.”

He ran the DNA test. It was Dick’s great-grandfather he had frozen. That did explain certain things. Why they might want him - why they knew to want Dick Grayson. Unfortunately, this was not a further clue to Dick’s location. Bruce had not seen him in the labyrinth, in spite of having an assigned spot; he could be at any Owl safe facility, if indeed the Owls had him.

True, they were most likely responsible, but he didn’t want to rule out Dick’s other enemies unnecessarily. Ra’s al Ghul had wanted him dead for years; Talia likewise. Deathstroke had been a worry almost as long. Hugo Strange knew who they were too. And Dick’s so-called friends might have more mundane motives for hurting him.

They just didn’t know enough.

“Have you learned anything new, Father?” Damian, back in the Cave against orders. Bruce was surprised he’d lasted two hours before asking again.

“Not enough,” Bruce told his son. “And you?”

Damian didn’t even attempt to deny working on the case upstairs. “Drake wishes to speak with you.”

It spoke volumes that Damian didn’t insult Tim with that. Under normal circ*mstances, Damian would be viciously denying that Tim could be any help at all.

“Is he on the phone now?” When he saw Damian’s nod, Bruce said, “I’ll take the call down here.” He didn’t want to alarm Damian with the little he had discovered.

He waited until Damian had left before he took the call. Red Robin appeared on the screen, demeanour coolly professional - a report from Titans’ Tower, then. Tim didn’t like showing familial warmth and affection where the Titans could see. “Batman,” Tim greeted him. “I found something.”

“About Nightwing?” Bruce asked, hoping.

“No,” Tim said. “The Court has bigger plans. An attack on Gotham, sometime in the next few weeks. I dug up some financials from the suspected members you sent me - sending my analysis now.”

This was why Tim had taken charge of the paper trail. If any of them chose, they could hang up their capes and cowls and become accountants (amongst other things) - but Tim was the best of them with the numbers. On top of that, his hacking skills were only exceeded by Barbara. Bruce read the top paragraph - suspected members of the Court investing in certain things - and knew it was well done. “Thank you, Red Robin,” Bruce said.

“I’ll come back to Gotham.”

“We could use your help.”

When it came to the mission, he and Tim understood each other.

This was worrying news, some of the worst Bruce could have possibly heard from him. Dick had been missing for more than a month. He was either dead, or they were running out of time. And the whole of Gotham had to come first.

Chapter 4: The Night of Owls

Chapter Text

Talon had started to fear that the Court would never let him leave.

Three more times the Court had instructed him to kill, and three more times he’d obeyed them. They had brought his victims to him, rather than allow him to go out and find them where they lived in the world above. The last of those three had not even been in the labyrinth, but brought before him bound and helpless. A test, he knew. Talon had enjoyed that kill even less than he enjoyed the others. It had made the voice in his head, the one he thought of as his true self and kept carefully locked away from the Court, rail against him for hours.

It hadn’t come back as loud afterwards, broken in a way that even the coffin hadn’t done.

He’d died a few more times in training, less and less as time went on. He was finally learning to strike to their satisfaction. Fast and fatal, at throat or chest, without hesitation or attempt to disable. It was very easy to do when he put his mind to it. Frighteningly so. He could feel the muscle memory forming over earlier, less lethal instincts.

Cobb vanished at some point, for which Talon was not sorry in the slightest, and was replaced by another Talon who did not unmask herself to him. She also doesn’t monologue. Upgrade, for sure. Her training methods were just as brutal as those of her predecessor. Talon managed.

They had put him in his coffin twice more. He didn’t know how long he spent there. He had no way of knowing whether he’d been with the Court for weeks or months or even years. He only knew that each time was a frozen nightmare.

But the third time they brought him out of that hell, he was not the only Talon there. Every coffin was open, uniformed men and women by them. To a person they all had blank expressions, not unlike the one Talon could feel on his own face. He felt kinship with them from the experience of the coffins alone.

Above them were the owl masks, blank and plain over the faces of people wearing much more lavish clothing. They had assembled again. This meant something, it had to. Talon took in everything about his would-be masters that he could. This could be his chance.

The lead Owl stepped forward, commanding attention through sheer physicality. He was tall and bulky, black hair visible over his white mask, and vaguely familiar in a way Talon refused to let himself think on. “Talons,” the man said, “You are required. Tonight, Gotham truly becomes the Court’s domain.”

The list of people to die was very long. Most of the names were somehow familiar, something from his life before the Court. Thoughts followed names, his sons will be devastated, after one; tough to get past their security after another couple. Babs will put a stop to it, after the police commissioner’s name was read out, though he did not know who this Babs was.

He was the last to receive an assignment. The eyes behind the mask of the speaker turned to him and said, “Gray Son, you are to have the honour of ridding Gotham of its Mayor. You are to go to City Hall and carry out his sentence. Kill all in your path, from the cleaning staff and guards to the councillors themselves. Only then can the Court take its rightful place.”

Talon, who found he already knew the layout of City Hall’s upper floors for some reason, jerked a nod. He could not openly defy them now.

To the assembled group - flock, hah - of Talons, the speaker said, “The greatest hazard to your goals this night is the Batman, a costumed and masked fool who thinks to claim Gotham for his own. You will know him if you see him.”

Something prickled at the back of Talon’s mind. He shoved it down. This was not the place.

“He has his own servants, a trio of younger men who serve him. They are Nightwing, Red Robin, and Robin. All three wear red and mask themselves as their master does. They, and the Batman, are to be killed on sight.”

The speaker continued, something about a Batgirl and someone in a red hood, also to be killed on sight, but Talon’s head was spinning. Nightwing. The name he was trying so hard to hide, the owner of the voice in his thoughts. His name.

He had to keep it secret from the Court. If they found out - he did not want to be frozen again. Never again.

One by one, the Talons made their way to the surface, through the lesser maze of the sewers. Never too many at once, lest they be tracked. He was going to see the sky again. Maybe even the sun. Can Talons get vitamin D deficiency? Talon wondered. He doubted it somehow.

The last few minutes of waiting were torture nearly as bad as the first time through the labyrinth, though nowhere near as bad as the coffin.

And at last, at last, he was free. Wearing the uniform and on a mission to kill, but those things could be fixed. He just had to find his master. The Batman.

Talon - no, Nightwing, under the sky he was Nightwing - stepped out of the sewers for the first time in he didn’t know how long, into bright light and reasonably fresh air. He immediately pulled off his gloves to feel the breeze on his skin. It was cold and damp, more like night air than he’d expect from such a fine sunny day.

Then he looked up into the dark night sky.

Oh, he realised. They changed my eyes as well. The thought brought nothing but despair. It was just another reminder of what he was now, as opposed to what he had been when he went into those sewers.

Suddenly he felt the need to go find a mirror. A public restroom would do. Figured. He got out of the sewers and went straight to find a bathroom. There were no mirrors in the Court, not for Talons, who had no need for vanity and trained in full, anonymous uniform. Hygiene was hosing the blood off his skin from time to time, and Nightwing had tried not to look at himself while they did.

The restroom he found was grimy and dilapidated, the dim fluorescent light above it flickering, but the mirror at least was serviceable. Nightwing peered into it.

He - he looked like Cobb. Enough like him to be his brother.

His own face was mostly familiar to him. Mid-twenties - he’d never get any older. Pale. Too pale. Black veins climbed up his neck and stood out around his eyes, which were most definitely a Talon’s. Solid black in the lack of light. That had to be why night was almost as bright as day to him now. The automatic light flickered on, and with the return of light a regular person could see by and a stab of pain from the sudden change in light level, Nightwing watched as the pupils of his eyes shrunk back to a more normal size, revealing bird-yellow irises.

He wasn’t human any more. That was clear. He could not even pass for human. What would his family think? His master?

First things first. He had to warn them of the Owls. That was the most important thing, and time was running short. Even if he could not prevent a single assassination, he had valuable information that might stop them from doing such things again. And if his family did fail, he could stand with them.

Nightwing took to the rooftops. Ditching the Talon uniform had to be his first move. It would not do for his family to mistake him for the enemy. The weapons he would keep, he would need them against his fellows. It was unfortunate to have to steal, but in this case necessary.

It didn’t take much to jimmy open the door of a sporting goods store. A chain store, which wouldn’t feel the loss as badly. The sporting goods store had the sort of tight, flexible clothing he preferred. Not much protection, he thought critically, out of habit. Then he remembered that he didn’t need the protection anymore. He was sorry to abandon the boots, which although not ideal were a better combination of sturdy and lightweight than anything this store had to offer (though again, what did it matter if he fractured a leg from a hard landing, or trod on broken glass?).

To finish off the ensemble, he took a balaclava. He hated it instantly, more than his hood and goggles, hated how it interfered with his peripheral vision and clung to his cheeks awkwardly. He couldn’t go outside unmasked, though. Nor could he bring himself to abandon his knives. They were his, more his than the uniform was, made to fit his hands. Along with the clawed gloves, discarded already for being too obvious and too hard to climb with, they were the tools of Talon’s trade.

There was, perhaps, more of Talon in him than Nightwing might like. But even the bit of him that was definitely all Nightwing didn’t like the idea of venturing into Gotham without any weapons.

Now, how to find Batman? He’d buried the names and habits of his family deep, deeper even than the name of Nightwing, to keep them out of the Court’s hands. And, more importantly, away from the Court’s Talons. This wasn’t the place to go soul-searching, either. Where is?

Back to the rooftops. It was easier to think up there. Easier to forget being Talon up there. Easier to see if his family was flying through the city.

By instinct, he found himself travelling towards City Hall. Just as he had been instructed.

He hated himself quite a bit right now. He was supposed to be Nightwing, and he knew he didn’t belong to the Court. He knew it. Batman was his master. He should not be doing as the Court asked.

But then again, it wasn’t the worst idea, going to City Hall. Surely Batman or one of his other servants would go there, to protect the Mayor from the assassins the Court had sent out. Then, instead of killing the Mayor, Nightwing could rejoin his family instead.

Nightwing knew the approach well, though he missed his grappling gun. He used to have one of those, he knew. With a grappling gun, he could have swung across to the roof and entered the council chambers with nobody the wiser. So much simpler. Instead, he headed closer to the ground and used a fire escape. An alarm went off as he forced the door. Burglary is not my calling. He said, while wearing stolen clothes.

The wry thoughts were coming more easily now than they had since he’d murdered the bound man, and he was grateful for it. He felt more like himself, in his own mind at least. His body - there was no denying that his body was a thing of the Court. He was physically a Talon. His stomach roiled with revulsion at the very thought.

He didn’t have to kill. He had to remind himself of that. Nightwing didn’t kill, because the Batman forbade it.

It would be so easy, though, he thought, slipping into the shadows behind a security guard who’d come to investigate the alarm. It would make things so much simpler. If he killed the guard, the Court would not be angry with him. He could continue his mission as he’d been ordered.

Rules were rules and the only orders he intended to follow were Batman’s. That was his mission, and evading the guards was still simple enough. Nightwing tucked himself into the darkness near a receptionist’s empty desk and waited for the Batman, his allies, or his enemies.

—

It wasn’t long before he heard the sound of a window smashing, followed by men shouting in alarm. That in turn was followed by a voice Nightwing found very familiar: “I’m here to protect you.”

Red Robin. He knew it. He knew that voice. Brother, he thought fondly.

“From what?” one of the men asked.

“There are assassins on the streets tonight,” Red Robin explained, as Nightwing headed for the window. He’d go around, not through, he decided. Going through the window just seemed right, and he was determined to do things the Bat way. It might be easier not to kill anyone if he did things the Bat way. “The Court of Owls. Half the prominent figures in Gotham are under attack.”

“We haven’t seen any,” another man said.

“You generally don’t, not until they kill you,” Red Robin said. “Someone’s broken in already. I don’t know why they haven’t struck earlier, we assumed City Hall would be a top target.”

That sounded like his cue. “That was me,” Nightwing said, slipping in through the hole in the window Red Robin had made in his rush to protect the Mayor. He tamped down on the desire to kill the man as he had been instructed. It was easier when he looked at Red Robin, equally sentenced to die, but his brother. There was no killing him. Not now, not ever.

“Nightwing?” Red Robin spun around, and did a double take. “What happened to you?”

Even behind the mask, Nightwing was sure his brother - always the smartest of us - was taking in every detail of his stolen clothing.

“Not sure,” Nightwing lied. For all he wanted to go back to his family, now that the moment was here, he didn’t want his brother to find out he was a monster now. He couldn’t face it. “The Court got me. I escaped. I came to help.”

The fact that he was supposed to be the assassin himself, he neglected to mention. He hoped there was enough light in here that his pupils didn’t blow out and reveal him. He hoped there wasn’t enough light in here for anyone to see the unnatural colour. Anything that connected Nightwing and Richard Grayson wasn’t a good idea either.

He could see more questions in Red Robin’s face, but they were suppressed. A security risk, Nightwing assumed. Instead, he nodded decisively. “Red Robin to Cave,” he said, “I’ve found Nightwing. He’s with me. Unarmed but alive and well.”

Without an earpiece, Nightwing couldn’t hear the reply, but he could see the smile on Red Robin’s face. “I’ll pass that along.”

Nightwing tilted his head.

“You’re in trouble,” Red Robin said. Still smiling. Nightwing didn’t think he was in that much trouble. “You’ve been missed.”

If so, how come nobody had found him? It was an unworthy thought. They would have tried. It was not their fault the Court kept its weapons, especially its untested weapons, close to hand.

Red Robin continued (while Talon’s target gaped), “You should go suit up. No offence, ‘Wing, but that’s not street gear.”

“I know,” Nightwing said. He didn’t want to confess in front of the targets that he couldn’t remember where to go in order to suit up. He’d buried that memory like he had his brother’s name. “I thought this was a bit more urgent.”

“Fair enough,” Red Robin said. “I take it you’ve been holding the fort here? Still -“ he broke off as he received some sort of message. “Nightwing, did you tamper with anything on the third floor?”

Nightwing shook his head. There shouldn’t be anyone coming, and he should know since it was his mission. Unless someone had noticed his desertion. The Mayor moaned in fear, and Nightwing felt a stab of irritation. Maybe Gotham would be better off without the man. But no, there would be no killing. Not by him.

He didn’t have longer to contemplate that, nor time to talk himself all the way down from killing the man, as a Talon burst through the door, slicing the throat of one of the councilmen as he went. Even through the goggles, Nightwing could feel cold eyes examining them all.

“Mayor Sebastian Hady, Red Robin,” the Talon announced, “The Court of Owls has sentenced you to die.”

Nightwing knew that voice. That was Cobb. Where had he been, anyway? And why was he back? Why was he backnow, at the worst possible time?Villains can be sooooo inconsiderate.

Red Robin settled into a fighting stance and groaned. “Aren’t you lucky, Nightwing? You’re in the clear.”

Nightwing shook his head as the Talon’s glassy stare moved back to him. He was not lucky. He was not lucky at all. If he had been lucky, he wouldn’t have been taken to the Court. If he had been lucky, a second Talon wouldn’t have shown up where there was supposed to be only one.

“Nightwing,” the Talon said. “You will be dealt with too.”

He would be frozen for this, if they caught him. Cobb could not be allowed to take him again. “Red Robin,” Nightwing said, “Get the Mayor out of here. Quickly.”

“You’re not -“ Red Robin started, but Nightwing was already moving. He had trained against Cobb enough to know that the other Talon would not hesitate from a killing strike, and was faster than Red Robin. Nor would he remain silent for long, when Nightwing wanted more than anything else to hide what the Court had made him.

There was an easy way to handle this.

He rushed Cobb, turned him around, and then tackled him straight out the window.

Falling did not bother Nightwing. It was, he understood, unusual for humans in general and unexpected in him in particular, though he could not remember why he was supposed to fear falling more than just about anything. He kicked Cobb hard to spoil the other Talon’s landing, sacrificing his own chance at landing in a proper dive and roll. He felt his legs and coccyx break when he hit the ground awkwardly, and slowly knit together again. It was nothing next to the crash Cobb made.

Aching and staggering, Nightwing drew a knife. There was one easy way to stop a Talon’s healing factor. He had to do this while Cobb was down. By the time he made his slow way to the other Talon, Cobb was starting to get up again.

“You were Nightwing,” Cobb hissed, spine still at an unnatural angle as he lay in the ruins of a car. “You knew the whole time who Batman was. Who Wayne was.”

The irony, of course, was that Nightwing had not the foggiest idea who Wayne was at all. Batman, presumably. His master’s name, then, one of the ones he’d buried in his mind. “I am Nightwing,” he said, and drove his knife through Cobb’s left eye. He stopped when he felt the point hit bone, the back of Cobb’s skull. Then he considered the matter, and drove another knife through Cobb’s right eye, just to make sure.

“Nightwing, what are you doing?” Red Robin asked, gliding down from the broken window. He sounded slightly sick, but not suspicious.

“He can’t heal around that,” Nightwing explained. Bullets could be pushed out, slowly, by the healing factor, as could small bits of shrapnel. Knives like the ones Nightwing had used were too bulky for that. The healing factor would only re-engage once the obstruction was removed.

Cobb himself had demonstrated that to Nightwing back in the sewers, with a sword and a handful of gravel. It had hurt a lot.

“We need to get him back to the cave and freeze him again,” Red Robin said. “Help me to take him to the Wing.”

“If you’ll tell me where you parked,” Nightwing said. He shuddered at the thought of freezing anyone, even Cobb. There was nothing worse than freezing. “Don’t say anything in front of him, he might heal enough to be aware.” Doubtful, with two knives piercing his eyes and brain, but no point taking chances.

“Understood.”

It took some effort, but together they hauled Cobb to Red Robin’s plane. Nightwing watched him the whole time - like an owl - for signs of revival. The two knives were doing their job, though it itched at him to be separated from the weapons. They were his. They belonged in his hands. Never mind that he was carrying several others.

All the long way back, he could tell that Red Robin had questions upon questions, and restrained himself only because of Cobb’s still form in the back of the plane. Nightwing had cuffed him wrist and ankle. No chances. None at all. If Cobb woke, if Cobb got free, he would reveal Nightwing as Talon and try to take him back to the Court, who would freeze him.

With that attended to, and conversation ruled out for caution’s sake, Nightwing busied himself looking at the sky. It was so bright through his altered eyes. So beautiful. He wished he was out there. Besides, if he was out there, he would not in here trying not to show said altered eyes to Red Robin in what had to be the dimness of the co*ckpit. To him it was light enough to see perfectly.

Further and further from the city they flew. The protector of Gotham did not live in Gotham, it seemed. If only he could remember, Nightwing was sure he would not feel quite so nervous.

Not quite so nervous, yeah, that sounds about right. I haven’t come home as a zombie super-assassin before. Oops, sorry Batman! My bad! That was still grounds for nervousness.

Worse, the plane was descending. It was - it was going underground.

Talon did not want to go underground again. If he could still hyperventilate unconsciously, he would be doing so. Red Robin didn’t notice - what’s there to notice? Nightwing thought bitterly - and brought them down into a large cave that reminded him so much of the Court he almost choked. Same white lights, same grey rock.

It was a bit less damp, he supposed. And Batman had what could only be described as homey touches. B’s the sort of man who considers a giant penny ‘homey’.

It was nice to know that before he went in. Now, if only he could properly remember Batman’s name.

Chapter 5: Mop-Up Operations

Chapter Text

Something was very wrong with Nightwing, and Tim was doing his best not to panic over it. His brother hadn’t hugged him. Hadn’t even tried. He wasn’t chattering away about inconsequential things that would reveal nothing to the Talon that might or might not be conscious even with two knives in its skull. He was tensing up and avoiding eye contact. For someone who had been held captive by the Owls for weeks he still had good muscle tone.

Very strange.

Even now, descending to the Cave, Dick was wire-taut. He’d never been like that before, not even the time he’d had to tell Bruce he’d dodged a bullet only to have it fatally strike someone behind him. He hadn’t moved to take off his balaclava, when getting rid of the mask was usually one of the first things he did.

“You okay?” Tim asked as they touched down.

“Fine,” Dick said, still oddly subdued.

It was an obvious lie - he’d been with the Court for weeks, nobody could be ‘fine’ after weeks of imprisonment - but Tim had never been the one to call Dick on that sort of thing. That was Bruce’s job, and Bruce was waiting in the Cave. “B will want to know everything,” he warned his brother. “Help me with the Talon first and then debrief. Everyone else is still out there.”

Dick jumped at the mention of the Talon and huddled down smaller. There it was, the not-fineness. Tim had noticed that Dick still wore a Talon’s bandolier of knives over his mishmash of what looked like regular gymnastics gear. His guess was that Dick had stolen the knives from a guard. And disabling a Talon would have been messy. He’d probably stolen the clothing too, but from somewhere less dangerous than a Talon’s undead body.

As soon as Tim landed and opened the door, Dick leapt out of the co*ckpit, moving to check on the Talon he’d stabbed in the eyes in that unusual show of viciousness. Tim’s train of thought was halted by Bruce’s familiar voice asking, from the shadows by the computers, “Dick? Is that you?”

Dick froze. Perfectly still, like a hunted animal. “Yes." The reply was oddly hesitant.

Batman hurried forward to see his eldest son, though he was bruised and bandaged from a fight with the so-called Owlman. Tim couldn’t help but smile. Poor Dick, Batman was going into mother hen mode, and Dick would get a taste of his so-oft administered medicine. “Take off that balaclava,” Bruce ordered. With great reluctance, Dick did so.

Beneath the wool, Dick’s face was ash white, unmistakeable dark veins showing at his neck and eyes. Now Tim could see that those eyes were yellow, and dull with despair.

Bruce looked him up and down, then punched him in the face.

Dick staggered back, somehow keeping his footing. Tim didn’t know what to do. Dick was a Talon. His freshly split lip was bleeding sluggishly, the flow already stopping as his lip healed completely.

Dead white skin, yellow eyes, healing factor. No mistaking it. But at the same time, he was also Dick, and he hadn’t shown any signs of loyalty to the Court. If the way Dick had stabbed the Talon in the eyes was any indication, he hated the Court more than any of them. Satisfied with the damage he’d failed to do, Bruce drew back, waiting for Dick to do something. Tim hovered awkwardly between them.

“I’m sorry,” Dick said.

“You’re a Talon.” It was almost impossible to tell what Bruce thought from his tone of voice. Long experience with Batman let Tim hear how upset he really was.

Dick flinched, and slumped. “I’m not,” he said. “I’m Nightwing. They wanted me to be Talon. They made - they - I’m not Talon. Not like that.”

“Is there a difference?” Tim asked. “Between being a Talon, and being Talon?”

Head down, arms lax, carefully submissive and non-threatening, Dick said, “Yes. I am, was, supposed to be first among them. It changes, every few decades, and my predecessor had been -“ a shiver “- decommissioned. He was brought out to work tonight.”

“What does decommissioning involve?” Bruce asked.

That at last made Dick sink into a more defensive posture and make eye contact again. Disturbing, yellow-eyed eye contact. “If I tell you, will you try to do it to me? I won’t let you. I would rather die.” His hands went to the bandolier of knives - his knives, Tim realised. Not stolen, except in the sense that Dick had stolen himself and everything he carried from the Court. “I know how to do that too.”

“Of course he won’t,” Tim said.

“I would prefer to restrain you,” Bruce said. “I know you would not harm us in your right mind, Dick, but I assume the Court used some form of mental conditioning on you, and I would prefer not to take the risk. If this ‘decommissioning’ is what I suspect it is, I will not do it. Not to you. Not ever. I promise.”

For a long moment, Dick didn’t move. Tim didn’t want to turn his back to either his brother or his mentor. But after a few seconds, Dick nodded and returned to that submissive stance. “All right. Where do you want me?”

“The holding cell,” Bruce said. They had one, built well before Tim was in the picture. Too many villains used mind-altering substances, and sometimes the best treatment was isolation.

Dick looked even whiter (how?!) at the mention of a cell. God, what had the Court done to him? This wasn’t like him at all. Normally, he hated quarantine, but he wasn’t afraid of it. “Underground?” he asked.

The hesitance in his voice was heartbreaking.

“Bruce,” Tim said, “He’s been held captive…”

“We’ll get the TV set up outside the cell so you have something to watch,” Bruce said. “It’s just until we’re all sure you don’t pose a threat to us, all right, Dick?”

“Dick,” Dick repeated. “That’s what you call me?”

As one, Tim and Bruce halted. “You don’t remember?” Bruce asked.

“I tried not to. I forgot. Deliberately. Now I can’t seem to get it all back.”

Tim shot Bruce a look. Dick didn’t remember them properly? Didn’t remember himself - well, Dick would choose to protect his memories of others over the details of his own life. That was perfectly in character for him. Even Bruce had small lines of stress around his eyes at the revelation. “Follow me,” Bruce said curtly, “And tell me what you do remember.”

Dick ducked his head again in another submissive gesture. This was so, so wrong. “I know that I am Nightwing,” he started, following meekly to the cell. “You are Batman. My master.”

“I am not your master,” Bruce said. “You are your own person. You don’t have a master. You work under my…supervision…frequently, but you have never been a mindless slave.”

It produced a frown on Dick’s face. “No master…” He gave a critical look at the transparent wall of the cell. Tim didn’t know if he remembered how it was reinforced. It was. Human strength couldn’t break out of it. Talons weren’t all that much stronger than regular humans, and even then, Tim wasn’t sure what was physical strength and what was not caring if and how they got hurt. It should hold him.

Tim felt sick, just thinking of Dick as a Talon, even with the reality in front of him. He could hardly believe it. There were the unfamiliar knives strapped across his chest, and of all things that was the easiest to reconcile with his mental image of Dick. Nightwing was usually armed with something. Which reminded him. “Dick, your knives. The cell.”

There was a tense moment while Dick ran his hands over the weapons, obviously drawing comfort from them. Eventually, he unfastened them. Instead of giving them to either Bruce or Tim, he laid them flat on the floor outside the cell, close and in view. He said, “If I don’t have a master, do I have brothers? A sister? I thought…I was so sure…”

“Yes,” Bruce said. “You have brothers and a sister. Tim is one of them.”

Tim nodded. “We’re brothers, Dick. Remember Jason? Damian? Cass?”

Dick shook his head. “I don’t remember your name either,” he said.

“Tim,” Tim said.

“Tim.”

“And Bruce is your father. He adopted you a few years ago.”

Bruce looked faintly embarrassed at that. That was Bruce all over, embarrassed to have people know how much he loved his eldest son. Including that son. But he nodded. “Please, Dick. The cell. The sooner we make sure the Owls haven’t somehow programmed you to be a threat in spite of yourself, the sooner we can let you out.” And fix this. This was wrong.

With a last longing glance back towards the wide open cave, Dick stepped through the door and allowed Bruce to shut it after him. “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s not what they would do to me.”

On that unnerving note, Bruce left, and Tim followed him. “A Talon, Bruce?” he asked, knowing that Dick couldn’t hear them and had no view of their mouths to lip-read. “Really?” Dick had said, and there was the obvious, but…he didn’t want to believe it.

“Denial will not help him,” Bruce said curtly. “The Court of Owls knew to target him. They must have wanted him all along. Get me Dick’s blood from the fridge so I can start on a comparison, brief Alfred, and then go back on patrol. The worst is over but we should keep an eye on the aftermath.”

“Should I notify anyone else?”

Bruce hesitated. “Just the family. I want to get to work on fixing him.”

“Will do, boss.”

The blood was a simple matter. Bruce’d have to draw more for comparisons. At least they had a good physiological baseline for Dick. This could be fixed, Tim told himself as he hurried upstairs to Alfred. They could fix Dick. If he was one of those…things…he wouldn’t be forever.

Closer to the Manor proper, Alfred was cleaning up the entrance to the Cave. They’d had Talons in here. “Alfred?”

“Ah, Master Tim. I am glad to see you returned safely.”

“Glad to see you’re all right too, Alfred,” Tim said, then, “We found Dick.”

The old butler frowned. “Glad as I am to hear that he has been located, I gather that the news is not entirely positive.”

“No,” Tim said, mouth dry. “The Court of Owls had him. They tried to make him one of their Talons.”

“Did they succeed?”

“Partially.” He should have told Bruce to do this. The look on Alfred’s face - “He hasn’t tried to kill us, but he’s repressed a lot of memories. And he’s got the, the look, and the healing factor thing going on. Bruce has him in the holding cell downstairs until he’s sure Dick doesn’t have any sleeper programming. He wanted me to ask you if you’d get the TVset up outside the cell.”

The TV in question was operated by voice-activated commands, set up to entertain (okay, occupy) people who were supposed to be staying in bed rather than working on case files (Bruce, Tim) or planning their daring escape from medical confinement (Dick, Damian). It wouldn’t be the first time the TVhad been outside the holding cell either; more than one of them had focused as hard as possible on the screen as the last of the fear gas wore off.

“I will do so immediately,” Alfred said. “Confinement does make Master Richard restless. You are returning to patrol, I trust?”

“Going to find the others and let them know what’s going on,” Tim said. “And mop up any more Owls we find.”

“Very good, sir. Now, if you’ll excuse me -“ Alfred’s voice stuttered, just for a second “- I shall attend to Master Richard.”

They went their separate ways: Alfred upstairs, probably to fetch Dick some clothes, and Tim back down to patrol more. He passed by the holding cell as he went, where he saw Dick sitting quietly on the room’s hard cot. He was far too still for Tim’s liking, and he hurried by without speaking to him.

He really felt sick.

—

In Jason’s professional opinion, the fight against the Owls was going okay. Not great, not awful, just okay. A dozen or so Talons could be managed, with difficulty. The Manor might have been stormed (seriously, B could have maybe considered keeping closer tabs on his captive) and a couple people got their throats sliced, but in all honesty the Gotham City Council had endured worse nights.

Damian’s outraged radio dispatches as people, out-of-towners by the sounds of it, refused to take him seriously had been comedy gold on a very trying night. He’d even called in Roy and Kori to help deal with Mr Freeze. Last he’d heard, they’d been doing good.

As for him…

“Oh, just stay down,” Jason told the twitching mass of immobilised Talon trying to stand up. Third one he’d taken down in four hours. The damn thing dodged like Nightwing, even if it didn’t hit like him, and soaked up bullet wounds like nobody’s business. Jason had got this one between the eyes and then staked it through a few limbs to immobilise it while it recovered from the bullet. He’d used his handcuffs on another Talon, and he’d learned the hard way with the second that the Talons just didn’t care if they got hurt escaping from zip ties. He’d turned his back for a second and that particular Talon had attacked, chunks of skin peeled from its bones flapping loose before it healed.

This Talon shifted, pulling as best it could at the rail spikes through its shoulders, but Jason had got muscle groups. It wasn’t going anywhere.

Well, not until he got a lift. “Red Hood to Red Robin,” he called over his comms, “You still got the plane? I have another Talon down.”

“Yes, I’ve got the plane,” Red Robin replied. “I’ll be there in 15.”

“Bring handcuffs. And rope. And keep your mind out of the gutter.”

“Fifteen minutes, Hood.”

The connection shut off. What had got into Replacement? He was usually more fun to rile up. He’d expected an exasperated sigh at least.

Jason turned back to the Talon, who had stopped struggling. “Looks like it’s you and me for the next quarter hour,” he said. “Want a cigarette?”

The Talon said, “Kill me.”

“Sorry, what?”

None of the Talons had spoken to him so far, not even when he insulted their mothers or called them damn zombies. Jason had assumed they couldn’t speak.

“You heard,” the Talon said, voice hoarse and muffled by the mask. “Kill me.”

“I heard that part. Someone’s coming with handcuffs. You’ll get unstaked soon.”

“It is not the stakes from which I want reprieve,” the Talon said. “I ask mercy. Kill me. End this.”

Jason stepped closer. The Talon hadn’t moved since it - he? - failed to shift the stakes. Cautiously, keeping his weapons out of grabbing distance, Jason pulled the Talon’s mask off.

Underneath there was a man. East Asian, by his features. His pupils were unnaturally blown until his eyes were solid black, and his skin was a bleached white interrupted only by darkveins around his neck and eyes.

“sh*t,” Jason said, “You’re actually people.”

“Once.” He grimaced, and raised his head with some difficulty, the better to look Jason in the eye. The stakes really couldn’t be comfortable for him at all, but Jason just couldn’t risk it. The bad guys knew how to play possum too. “Tell me, what year is it?”

Jason told him.

“Truly?” The Talon asked. He let his head fall back to the ground. “When they took me, 1900 seemed a long way off. Kill me, I beg you. The Court will only freeze me again. I ask for your mercy.”

“You sure?” Jason asked. The Talons were meta-freaks, no question, and he’d happily end them in self-defence or defending someone else, but the idea of straight up murdering some poor bastard it sounded like the Court lifted off a street and forced to kill for them did not sit well. B and the Replacement were more on top of who the Owls were and what they wanted - Jason gathered that they were rich pricks who considered Gotham and all its people to be their property, and that was enough for him. “I know a bit about waking up alive when you didn’t expect to. There are people who could help you get away from the Court.”

“And do what? Find my family, a hundred and fifty years dead? No. I am done. I just want to die.”

No wonder this Talon had gone down so easy. He’d never wanted to win their fight at all. “It’s your decision.”

“At last,” the Talon agreed.

“How do I do it? No offence, but you guys don’t die to the usual things.”

“Decapitate me and ensure my head remains parted from my body.”

“Brutal,” Jason observed. “Good thing I brought my machete. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

The Talon bared his throat, obviously wanting Jason to get on with it already. “If it is not too much trouble, would you ensure my body is burned? I have spent too long underground.”

Jason had a will. It sure as sh*t specified that when he died again, they were burning his corpse. Just to make sure he didn’t wake up in a coffin again. He understood. More than he’d like to. “Nothing else? That cigarette? Your name?”

“Free my arm? I want to write my name one last time - Xiao Loong. The cigarette will not be necessary.”

Carefully, Jason removed the stake, keeping his gun trained on the other man. If he made a move to attack, it was night-night for him. But as he had said, the Talon simply used his freed hand to draw the characters for his name in the dust.

“Good name,” Jason said. He couldn’t read the characters, his grasp of traditional Chinese too weak. He'd copy them down. “I’ll have your body burned under it and it’ll go on your urn. Now, say goodbye to the Court of Owls.”

The Talon raised his head again and spat to the side.

Jason grinned, and brought the machete down. The first blow killed him, and two more got his head off. Not the neatest decapitation Jason had ever seen, though at least he hadn’t made a total mess of it. He picked up the head he’d severed, moved it a safe distance, and lit up a cigarette.

He’d just finished when the plane touched down on the next rooftop. “Hey, Replacement,” he greeted Red Robin, “I don’t need the handcuffs anymore.”

Tim was staring at the probably perma-dead body of the Talon. “What did you do?” He asked, horror in his voice.

“Nothing he didn’t ask me to,” Jason said. “He wanted out, he told me how, I did it.”

“You didn’t offer to help him?”

“What do you take me for? Of course I offered to help him. He said he didn’t want to go back to the Court. Or keep living. He implied he was pushing 200, I think he’s got a right to say enough is enough.”

Tim moved closer, limbs stiff, eyes fixed on the dead Talon. “How long since you killed him?”

“I dunno, ten minutes? What’s got into you? I know you don’t think mercy kills are evil, and trust me, this was a mercy kill.” I just want to die. The words had been all sincerity.

“I found Dick,” Tim said. “Or he found me. I took him back to B.”

“Yeah? So he finally showed. Took him long enough.” And if anyone accused him of being relieved, he’d deny it to his second dying breath. “I take it he’s okay.”

The Replacement’s gaze didn’t leave the dead man in front of them. “They made him a Talon,” he said. “The Court kidnapped him and made him a Talon.”

Jason looked at the body too, understanding in an instant why Tim was freaking out on him. Xiao Loong herehad found existence as a Talon so intolerable he’d asked an enemy to lop his head off at the first opportunity.

Whatever had happened to him, had happened or was still happening to Dick.

“sh*t,” said Jason.

Chapter 6: Optimist and Pessimist

Chapter Text

The cave was familiar. Nightwing - Dick, he had a name, so that was why ‘Richard’ never felt right - could feel that. He had been in this cell before. Several times, never in happy circ*mstances. He could almost remember it. Batman’s face was familiar. He knew that face too, as well as he knew his own.

Better than his own, perhaps. Especially now.

Okay, focus. Remember. Here’s a good place for that soul-searching. Tim, that name came easily now that he’d been reminded. Then nothing. He breathed deeply, cleared his mind as best he could, and tried again.

This time, memories squeezed through, in strange fragmented pieces.

Tim. Timmy. Red Robin. The clever one, yes, now he remembered more than the description that had leapt to mind on hearing his voice, perfectionist, loved computers. Little brother. Not the youngest of his brothers, not the oldest of his brothers. He’d gone trainsurfing with him before. Trainsurfing. He could remember! The wind in his hair, the shifting of the train beneath his feet, a blindfold over his eyes. He’d taught Tim how.

Progress. Not everything - not even all that much - but more memories than he’d started with. Dick lay back on the cot and looked up at the blank ceiling, though he didn’t quite dare to smile. This was so much better than being frozen.

“Dick.” Batman - Bruce - was back. “Dick,” Bruce greeted him, as Dick stood up and cautiously came closer to the glass separating him from his father. “Would you be willing to let me draw a blood sample?”

“Is a sample all you want?” Dick asked.

The last time someone had done something medical to him, it had hurt a lot and he’d woken up unable to die. Suspicion seemed reasonable. But - This is my father. I trust him.

He wasn’t a Talon. He wasn’t going to be a Talon. He was going to trust the Nightwing voice he’d kept alive. That was who he was. Before Bruce could say “Just a sample, I promise,” Dick had nodded his permission and started rolling up his sleeve.

“Thank you,” Bruce said. He opened the door and let himself in, and once again Dick was hit by a rush of pure familiarity. It was hard to think specifically of what it might be that was making him remember. Bruce’s size next to his, the smell of his deodorant, the brutal economy of his every movement. It could be any or all of it.

“What are you going to use it for?” He hadn’t had the time to try and find more concrete memories of Bruce. He didn’t know - at the moment - what Bruce wanted the sample for.

“I want to compare it with your medical records here,” Bruce said. “I already found electrum in your old blood samples, which needless to say, shouldn’t be there. I suspect it’s been there for a long time, probably ever since you lived at the circus.”

The last word triggered another spatter of memories. ‘Circus’ meant a big tent and a small trailer. The trapeze, practicing for hours every day. Bright colours and loud, slightly tinny music. These memories came easier than those of Tim, but they were all faded with age. His childhood. Circus brat. Dick Grayson didn’t need to hide that from anyone, not even the Court. He wondered why he’d buried them at all.

He remembered two people - my parents - falling, in the spotlight the whole long way down. He remembered the crunch as they hit sawdust over unforgiving ground.

So that was why he was supposed to be afraid of falling.

“Did you remember something?”

“Yes,” Dick said.

Something must have showed on his face, or in his body language, because Bruce’s own face softened just slightly with concern. It takes a lot of concern for him to move his face that much. “Your parents?” he asked, with a gentleness he somehow didn’t find surprising.

“Yes,” Dick said, certain of the memory. Unlike the other newly returned circus memories, these were still crystal clear. He could feel the drop in his stomach, the horror that was almost twenty years old.

“I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t kill them.” Tony Zucco. Acid on the lines. He remembered.

He watched as Bruce drew blood from his arm. It looked the same as any other blood, for all Bruce just said there was something in it that wasn’t supposed to be there. For all his arm was a strange shade of washed-out white, veins showing dark at the thin skin of inner elbow and wrist as well. When Bruce withdrew the needle, they both watched as the puncture sealed itself instantly, leaving only the tiniest bead of blood on unmarked skin. “Does it hurt?” Bruce asked.

Dick shrugged. He couldn’t really remember sustaining wounds outside the Court. By contrast, he could tell that Batman was in pain right now. He wondered who Bruce had fought. “The injuries hurt, the healing doesn’t.” He thought a bit, then, remembering why he’d chosen to run in the first place, added, “They train Talons to fight through pain and disregard wounds.”

“Was this done to you?” The question was quiet and intense. Dick could almost feel those blue eyes burning into his skull. There was no lying to Batman. He had the feeling he’d tried that before and failed.

“Yes.” That, he didn’t have to search to remember. He could remember seeing his insides on the outside. Viscerally, as it were. I’ll have to use that on Jason. He’ll appreciate the joke. Bruce sure didn’t. “I’m okay, though,” he said. “Look, not a scratch!”

Making light of this felt right. Bruce just glared at him though. “I doubt that,” he said. “You know full well that injuries can have psychological effects.”

He didn’t, actually, not really. He couldn’t remember. “Maybe,” he said quietly, unable to make two jokes in a row out of being murdered several times quite yet, “But they have ways of training hesitation out as well.”

Brue frowned and took a step back from him that almost looked natural. “I’ll add combat reevaluation to the list,” he said. “We can’t have you killing people by accident. Inanimate targets only until I’m satisfied you can control yourself.”

How many people had he killed in the labyrinth, as Talon? Four? Five? A number greater than zero, and he couldn’t - he couldn’t tell Bruce. Bruce hadn’t just refrained from freezing him, he hadn’t killed Dick to discipline him, he hadn’t told him to kill anyone, he’d given him a nice cell, and he was talking about eventually letting him out. Way better than the Court’s deal, even if he was still underground. He didn’t want to risk that.

It was selfish of him, he knew. The Court had made him selfish. “Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” Bruce replied. “Stay here for the meantime. Alfred will bring you clothes and something to entertain yourself with. You could be here a while.”

“That’s fine,” Dick said. “Beats the alternatives.”

Bruce looked discomfited as he retreated fully, locking the door behind him. It left Dick to enjoy how his life was turning out right now. He’d been turned into a monster, forced to kill, most of his memory had gone AWOL, and he was still underground, but his rock-bottom expectations had been well and truly exceeded. Dick lay back on his cot again (time out of the freezer that wasn’t training!) to think.

More than anything else, he wanted his memories back. Without them, he’d stay more Talon than Nightwing. Dazed, lacking options, living in constant fear of his icy coffin, thinking no further ahead than the next training session, the next mission, the next command. Eventually, Dick knew, obedience would have become a habit. It still could.

Much better to remember and be Nightwing again. As much as he could given his…changed circ*mstances, even if the guilt of what he’d done crushed him. Hopefully his family really would let him out. Maybe they’d help him work out a way for him to go out in public.

Now, who to try and remember next? His siblings, he thought. He had a feeling they wouldn’t like it if he could remember a bit about Tim and nothing about them.

Damian especially.

Remembering Damian it was, then. Damian, Damian. Damian Wayne - Bruce’s only biological son.You really think that matters in this family, Dami? So determined to win approval. Dami outdoors with a dog, because he was such a sweetheart with animals even if he hated for anyone to know. Dami indoors with his sketchbook, which Dick was never allowed to see. His face was still a blur in Dick's memory. Robin. His Robin, before he was even Bruce’s.

That wasn’t right. That meant - but at the same time -

“I was Batman?” he asked his ceiling, perplexed.

“Indeed you were, Master Richard,” a new voice said. “For all of last year. Master Timothy has informed me that you are experiencing a few difficulties with your memory at present.”

He knew this man too. “Alfred,” Dick said, confident of this one.

Alfred inclined his head, somehow managing to make the movement dignified in spite of the tall pile of folded clothing and books he was holding. If Dick had tried that he would have smashed his nose into the topmost paperback. “I am glad to see you back with us, young sir. Your disappearance last month had us all most concerned.”

“How long was I gone?” The reminder that he’d lost track was sobering. How long in the labyrinth? How long training? How long undead and frozen in the darkness, without the sound of even his own heart and lungs to keep him company? Clearly it hadn’t been years, as he’d been afraid of right up until he saw Tim.

“Five weeks, Master Richard. A little more.” For just a second Dick could have sworn he saw a suspicious glassy shine in the old man’s eyes. “We were all most concerned.”

“I’m back,” Dick said. Awkward. He remembered Alfred’s name and that was it. That was all.

It’ll come back. It has to come back.

“Quite so.” That seemed to be the end of that moment. Once again Alfred moved without disturbing his stack of luxuries, this time opening the door. Dick sat up, trying to remain unthreatening, while Alfred entered to set the stack down neatly in a corner. “Now, I have brought you some books and a change of clothing - workout clothes only, I’m afraid, but if you would be so good as to get changed while I fetch the television - good heavens!” He pivoted back around upon seeing what Dick was no longer wearing.

Dick pulled his pants back up. “Did I do something wrong?” In the Court, if they told Talon to strip, usually to replace a bloodied uniform, Talon stripped, no matter who was watching.

“I hadn’t expected your compliance to be quite so immediate,” Alfred said. “If you will excuse me, I’ll let you change in private.”

Privacy was an illusion with transparent walls and the camera he knew was there. It’s not about Bruce wanting to watch everything, he remembered saying to someone. It’s just to make sure you don’t hurt yourself while he works on an antidote, ‘cause he can’t be in two places at once. The last thing he wants is to see you hurting like that. One of his brothers, he thought. Not Damian. The miserable dark-haired huddle of child he could remember not-so-clearlywas too pale to be Damian.

Dick shrugged off Alfred’s departure along with the clothes he’d stolen. The set Alfred had brought in its place, loose black sweatpants and an equally baggy navy sweatshirt, smelled familiar. These were his, the scent of deodorant and detergent both in the fabric. He wore these things after working out. He had chosen them.

It was…comforting.

He wondered what his room here looked like. He assumed he had a room, in any case, if his family allowed him to own things. Talons didn’t own anything, not even the knives made for them. Talons were things, not people. They didn’t even own themselves. But he was a person, he reminded himself. He hadn’t stopped being a person just because the Court had taken him and made him…this. They didn’t own him.

The books Alfred had brought were battered paperbacks. Dick ran a finger down the cracked spine of one, and was struck by a memory of throwing it at someone. He couldn’t remember who. He couldn't remember why. He didn’t even remember what the book was about.

And Tim says you don’t get any enjoyment from rereading a novel.

Before he could start on reading - another thing the Court did not allow Talon to do, why would they? - Alfred returned. Bruce had barely made a sound coming or going, but Alfred had a light tread that seemed more a deliberate notification of his presence than the logical result of feet hitting the ground. “Settling in, Master Richard?”

“I think,” he said.

“Excellent. Have you eaten?”

“No,” Dick said. “I don’t think I need to.” The Court hadn’t fed him since the procedure and he seemed none the worse off for it. He didn’t know how long he’d been in the labyrinth before, but he could count a month or so with zero food as yet another thing that should have killed him by now and hadn’t.

It probably saved a ton on food. Zombify all your assassins! Low upkeep!

“I see. Would you like to eat, then?”

“Yes, please,” he replied immediately.

What was the worst that could happen? Possibilities leapt to mind alarmingly fast. If his digestive processes weren’t working any more, he’d soon have to find out if emetics still worked on him. He'd get a head start on the drug interaction tests Bruce no doubt wanted to do. Worst case scenario, he’d have to gut himself and let his intestines regenerate entirely, which would not be fun at all. Worth it to find out if I can have Alfred’s cooking again. Besides, not like it can kill me. He didn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t be able to eat. As long as he wasn’t in the coffin, his heart and lungs still worked. Digestion should be the same, right? He just didn’t need it.

“I will make sure to bring something down. In the meantime, do you recall the commands for the television?”

Off. On. Channel. Volume up, volume down. The last time he’d done this - the last time - no, he couldn’t recall. But he could remember the commands, and that nobody in the cell got their hands on electronics, crockery, or cutlery. “Yes, Alfred,” he said.

“Very well.” He paused a second, said, “Regardless of the circ*mstances, Master Richard, I could not be happier that you are back with us.”

Once again Dick was left alone, but this time with the television for company, switched to a late-night shopping program of some kind. The excitable, up-and-down pitching of the infomercial was soothing for a reason that took him a few minutes to work out: it was nothing like the carefully controlled tones used around Talon in the Court.

He changed the channel anyway. The lighting of the set was too much like down here. He wanted to see the sky. Dick flicked past a drama and a late night movie before finding a documentary. Something about big cats on the savannah. Lots of sky. Lots of open space.

He watched for a while, but when he saw a leopard drop from a tree to kill an antelope, he went back to the infomercial.

—

Bruce was having trouble concentrating. It had very little to do with how long he’d been awake, nor how hard his fight against Lincoln March had been. It had almost everything to do with the fact that Dick was dead.

Talons had many of the biological processes of life - but they didn’t need them to continue existing. They could ‘survive’ their cessation. Dick was in the holding cell, present and functioning, but not properly alive. The Court had killed him. Repeatedly, if Bruce correctly understood his statements about being trained to disregard pain, injury, and fear thereof. The Court hadn’t cared about Dick’s good nature, his unshakeable optimism, his kind heart. They’d only cared about his athleticism and a skilled hand to hold their knives.

For that, they’d killed Bruce’s son. And it was Dick in the cell, not some cheap copy. The way he'd spoken about his parents, the frown and the twitch of his mouth when he did...it was Dick. Bruce knew it.

He didn’t know whether to just be glad Dick was back, in whatever form he had him now; to devote every waking moment to try and fix what had been done to him; or to go down to the sewers and tear up every Owl stronghold he could find brick by brick until nothing was left of the Court and all it stood for.

'All of the above' sounded good.

On the screen surveying the holding cell, Alfred had brought Dick a tray with a heaping paper plate of sliced vegetables, spicy grilled chicken, and bread, a paper bowl of sliced fruit, a pair of chocolate chip cookies, a large bottle of water, and a box of Crocky Crunch. Even by Alfred’s standards, it was a lot of food (though Alfred had a lot of worry to work off, and overfeeding Dick would make the butler feel better quickly). Dick lifted a bit of chicken to his nose, sniffed at it, and then cautiously took a bite.

Bruce watched Dick’s face contort in surprise and alarm. At first Bruce thought the act of eating had caused him pain, but as Dick spat out the heavily spiced chicken and gulped down water, he realised that it was the taste that had caused that reaction. Talons could taste, then, though it was possible that they did so with all the sensitivity of a young child who could not handle anything too sour, too bitter, or too spicy - the natural decay of tastebuds reversed by whatever the Court did to make its Talons. And Alfred’s chicken was certainly spicy. Bruce would have to ask Dick about it. Test.

The fruit and vegetables did not seem to bother him. Dick ate those enthusiastically. And the Crocky Crunch as well. His mystifying love for sugary cereal remained intact.

But as hard as he tried, Bruce couldn’t look at that ghostly colouration and think that’s Dick. Dick was…lively. Even when he was sick he had never been as pale as he was now. And those dull yellow eyes surely had little in common with Dick’s bright blue.

At least Dick could still eat. At least the Court hadn’t taken the joy of food from him. One thing they hadn’t taken, in what Bruce already knew would be a long, long list if there wasn’t a cure for the process. Some sort of treatment. So many things that would be lost to Dick if Bruce couldn’t fix this.

Dick’s dreams of joining the police, gone. Almost every chance of starting his own family, gone. Every future, every long-term hope he knew Dick had for himself, destroyed by the Court.

“I see he is enjoying his dinner,” Alfred said.

“Except the chicken.”

“Except the chicken?” Alfred asked, baffled. “Master Richard has never complained of it before. I was under the impression he was fond of the recipe.”

“I think that might be the least of the changes,” Bruce said. “I can’t leave him like this, Alfred.”

“Nobody is suggesting you do so, sir. But it has been a long night and there is precious little you can do for Master Richard right now. Masters Jason, Timothy, and Damian will need you too, when they return.”

“Tim was fine.” Bruce dismissed the concern. He couldn’t deny that the other two would handle it badly. He didn’t know which would handle it worse, in fact. Damian, who still relied on Dick for emotional guidance? Jason, with his well-established issues about death and resurrection? He’d never known how to help either of them. “Dick will need me the most.”

“Perhaps, but that is no excuse for neglecting your other sons. Or your daughter, though I suspect Miss Cassandra may be the most able to cope, when she returns.”

Bruce thought about replying, but a screen beeped. The first of the blood analysis. He turned his back on Alfred to read the results, a limited comparison between Dick’s altered blood (further altered, if one was being technical) and another he’d taken in the past week. “It’s the same as the Talon’s,” Bruce said. The other Talon’s. Not that he had expected anything else. He had to be thorough. That was important. He could not afford to make any mistake with this.

“Indeed?” Alfred did not sound impressed or enthusiastic. “Speaking of that first gentleman, Master Timothy unloaded his body from the plane. There are a pair of knives through his eyes that I believe match the empty spaces on Master Richard’s new accessory, and he is cuffed quite securely. Leaving corpses lying around the cave like that is intolerably untidy. What do you wish done with him?”

“Hook him up to the freezer again, please, Alfred.”

“Very well, sir. After that I fear I must retire for the evening. There is food for the boys in the oven upstairs, and I have left a tray for you by your left elbow.”

Bruce hadn’t even noticed. There was a problem in front of him that he intended to solve. That heneeded to solve.

Chapter 7: Bad Reactions

Chapter Text

Damian had heard precious little from Father or the others all evening. He knew better than to think them dead. His father had fought and defeated the fool who called himself Owlman; Drake had succeeded in protecting Gotham’s useless mayor and then gone off-line; Gordon had diverted the attacks against her father and shut off that hideous ‘Owl-Signal’, but it was Damian and Todd who had fended off the bulk of the enemy’s foot soldiers.

It would have been much easier with Grayson. The fool was still missing. If - when he returned, Damian was going to be very angry with him. He would be helping pick up after Titus for a week, a month, for making Damian worry like this.

Robin returned to the Cave near dawn, weary from the night’s exertion. He was surprised to see Pennyworth still up, busying himself with the contraption Father had used to imprison the first Talon they’d captured, the one who had been so useless on the topic of Grayson’s whereabouts. “Master Damian,” Pennyworth greeted him.

“Pennyworth.”

“Your father is at the computers. He will want to speak to you before you wash up.”

A late briefing, then. Damian was not unused to such, even though normally when missions ran so late Father relented and allowed them to write up their reports the following morning.

But when he approached his father, he went unnoticed. Father was half in workout clothing, half wrapped in bandages. The fight must not have been easy. Now, instead of stretching or eating or even working on his own post-mission report, he was absorbed in…blood analysis?

“Father,” Damian said, “I have returned.”

“Oh, Damian. Good.” He set the blood test down and turned to face him. “We’ve found Dick.”

“Grayson is back? Is he - well?” He was about to ask if Grayson was alive, but Father would never break the news of Grayson’s death in such a cavalier fashion.

“The Court had him,” Father said. “They intended to make him a Talon.”

The Talons Damian had fought that evening had, for the most part, been silent things. They came and they killed with hardly a word. The one who had spouted that interminable monologue had been the sole exception. Mostly, they seemed little more than tools of the Court, with no desires of their own, and Damian felt little regret about beheading the ones he had fought, wounds from which even they seemed unable to recover from. It was a poor fit with Grayson’s personality. He snorted.

“Damian. To a certain extent, they succeeded.”

Damian narrowed his eyes. “To what extent is that, Father?”

“He was held captive the entire time he was gone, from what Tim and I can tell. He suppressed most of his memories to protect our identities from the Court. He has not got them back. The Court’s abuses have made that difficult.”

“Grayson has always been a self-sacrificing fool.” Underneath the words was more worry. Would Grayson still be Grayson, lacking the bulk of his memories? What if he didn’t remember Damian? What if he remembered Drake but not Damian? That would be intolerable.

“What he did was prudent,” Father said sternly. “He would have had little choice.”

Prudent. The Court already knew who they were. That was Father’s mistake, not Grayson’s. “May I see him?” Damian asked. “I assume he is in the holding cell.”

“He is,” Father confirmed. “One more thing, Damian. The Court succeeded in changing his physiology. Be careful of his eyes. Any sudden changes in light level might hurt him.”

“Understood,” Damian said stiffly.

Without even stopping to change, he went to the holding cell, not knowing what he’d find there. A Talon, plain and simple? He tried to imagine Grayson with white skin and prominent veins around his eyes, and failed. Grayson as a Talon. Absurd. Unthinkable.

He heard the sound of some sort of commercial before the cell came into view. No, it was an infomercial. Grayson had insisted there was a difference, and unusually enough, Todd had agreed with him. When Damian had been fear gassed three months ago, Grayson had shut him in the cell and set up an infomercial in front of the door, much like the current arrangement. It had been something about a weight that shook in a near-obscene manner. The vapid, irritating faces of the actors and the stupid product had annoyed him so much he could feel it almost as soon as the artificially-induced fear started to ease.

Now, wrong was what was in front of him. Grayson was watching the infomercial - the same, aggravating infomercial, the one Grayson had picked specifically because he knew it would annoy Damian - with a blank expression on his too-pale face. He looked up a second or two before Damian would have expected.

He looked very like the Talon that his father had captured.

Grayson didn’t smile when he saw Damian, nor make a quip about his viewing material, just watched him carefully. As if Damian was a threat to him. “Grayson,” Damian said.

“Dick,” Grayson said. Almost snarled. “Not Gray son. My name is Dick.” Then he frowned slightly, and asked, “Damian? I couldn’t remember your face.”

“Yes,” Damian said, taken aback at Grayson’s vehemence. He’d never minded being addressed by his surname before, nor had he ever left that small pause between its syllables. “Father said you were turned into a Talon. I see that it is true.”

“I know I wasn’t born like this.”

Grayson, if he was Grayson as he usually was, would have said that with a smile. Instead, he looked as though that was a serious comment that he had to think about before answering. Damian hated it instantly. He hated it. “How could you be so stupid?” he demanded, unable to contain himself. The whole month of worrying about him, not knowing where he’d been, came pouring out of him in a few angry words. “You aren’t supposed to get caught. How could you let yourself get captured by that third-rate pack of conspiracy theorists? You were Batman!”

“I don’t remember that,” Grayson said. “I don’t remember how I got captured either.”

“That only makes your failure more pathetic,” Damian spat back. “What do you remember?”

He wanted, very badly, for Dick to remember him.

Grayson smiled at him. It looked forced. Damian hated that too. “I remember a little. You like drawing.”

“Well, that’s something,” Damian sneered. “One thing. Out of how many things? You chose that to remember? Something as unimportant as my hobby? While forgetting even how to recognise me?”

“What should I remember?”

In that moment, Grayson’s body language was very much that of a Talon, rather than the - the brother - Damian knew. He was far too tense. He looked almost ready to attack, or to spring away and vanish.

Then Grayson broke eye contact, relaxing his shoulders and hands. It was clearly supposed to be a submissive gesture. A means to pacify a threat - or appease a master. Nightwing. Who had never tolerated being treated without respect. It made Damian feel sick. It couldn’t happen to Nightwing. It couldn’t. “You were Batman,” Damian said, and stalked off.

It was not a retreat. It was not.

His father didn’t notice his return, much as he’d barely registered Damian’s initial arrival in the Cave. “You have to fix him,” Damian told his father. “And then I demand we find the rest of the Owls and lock them in their own maze.”

Father barely seemed to hear him, so absorbed was he in his work. Damian did not retreat from him either. Instead, he accessed his own computer and began to plan. He had Owls to trap.

—

The sun was just about up when the Replacement landed back at the Cave, which meant Jason was back at the Manor in full daylight for the first time in years. Nostalgic. From the way Alfred didn’t mysteriously appear from thin air the way he usually did, Jason thought he’d gone to sleep. Or possibly gone to recharge whatever magical battery kept him able to run around after Batman and his sidekicks and keep the giant house in working order and still have as many contingency plans for domestic emergencies as Bruce had for Arkham breakouts.

Jason could only hope he was that badass when he was pushing seventy, was what he was saying.

“Where’s Damian?” Tim asked, looking around. “I know he was on his way back.”

“Computers?” Jason suggested. “Bothering Dick?”

He looked at Tim. Tim stared back. They’d realised the same thing, Jason knew. If Damian had beaten them back to the Cave, Bruce would have broken the news about Dick. Bruce. Possibly the worst with emotions of all of them. It could have gone badly.

Goddamnit, this sort of crisis was why they needed Dick in the family to start with.

“I’ll check the holding cell,” Jason said. He wanted to see Dick too, anyway, since he still couldn’t quite believe it. Dick, a zombie. Really. It sounded like a bad joke. Bruce’s bad idea of a joke, or bad idea of a mission.

“I’ll take the computers,” Tim said. “If I can pry Bruce away from his brooding, I will.”

Personally, Jason thought it was more likely that Tim would get sucked into Bruce’s spiral of brooding, but whatever. He was here to check on Goldie’s undeath status and make sure there were no more Talons rampaging through the city. “You do that,” he said, and headed off on the familiar walkway to the holding cell.

He heard the TV before he saw anything. Sounded like Dick had the first of the early morning cartoons on.

That hadn’t changed.

He didn’t want to just rush in and startle Dick. None of them reacted well to that even at the best of times. He stepped around the corner quietly, hoping not to disturb him too much. Not to mention get the measure of what was going on before engaging.

His older adoptive brother was lying on the cot, attention drawn to Jason’s movement. So much for being unobtrusive. If it weren’t for the skin and the veins, he’d’ve looked like he was kicking back to recover from fear gas or something. And the lack of change in Dick’s behaviour in itself was weird and disturbing. He was supposed to be a Talon, and he was relaxing in front of cartoons.

“Gotta say, white and vein-y isn’t your best look,” Jason said, forcing a grin. “’sup, Dickie?”

Dick’s forehead crinkled. There was not an iota of recognition on his face. Nobody home. Nothing there.

“Don’t tell me you don’t remember me.”

“I don’t remember you,” Dick said. Convincingly delivered, if it was a lie.

At least he didn’t sound quite the same. That said, that was because when it came to any alleged brothers Dickie was an overenthusiastic puppy who had somehow acquired the form of a grown man. The blankness in his tone wasn’t like him at all.

“They do that to you, or did you trip over and bump your head?” Honestly, it was more likely the Owls went the brain-wipe route than Dick tripped.

“I did it,” Dick said. “I couldn’t let them find out.” He frowned again. “You’re Jason.”

“Good job forgetting our identities.”

“It worked as long as I needed it to.”

Now that sounded more like Dick. “Are you faking this?” he asked, suspicious and unable to bear it. Maybe it really was a stupid joke, or Bruce’s idea of an undercover mission. Dick would do anything for Bruce if Bruce framed it as protecting the family. “I know you could if you wanted to.”

In reply, Dick brought his wrist to his mouth and tore open the skin of his wrist with his teeth. He pressed his bleeding arm to the reinforced glass. “Can’t fake this,” he said, as Jason watched the ragged tear heal in seconds. Soon the only evidence that Dick had chomped into his own flesh like a f*cking shark were the bloody smears on the window and Dick’s arm.

“You got me there,” Jason said, forcing strength into his voice. So it wasn't a joke or an undercover mission. There was that hope gone. The Court really had got Dick, and messed with him bad. “Jesus. That’s nasty.”

There was a silence just a beat too long, then Dick said, “You should have seen some of the training in the Court. I lost a nose.”

Dick was clearly saying it mostly because he thought he should make a joke of it, but he let that pass. Jason cast an eye over Dick’s regular features. No sign of any nose injury, and Jason knew he’d broken it at least once over his Robin career. There used to be the tiniest bump in it, had been as long as Jason had known him. “You lost your nose and I wasn’t there to see it, prettyboy?”

“A nose,” Dick corrected him.

“Pedant. I’m still creeped out, by the way, if that was what you wanted.” Jason knew he could be a bit cavalier cracking jokes about how he’d died that one time, but that was him, so it was different. Dick wasn’t supposed to casually say oh yeah, someone hacked off one of my facial features; fun times! It was Dick. He knew how fast the man was. Usually Jason only saw him injured was when he was seriously outnumbered or fighting one of the Gotham heavies. Even Bruce had trouble catching him.

He’d probably been suckered into something dangerous again. Goddamn trusting fool.

“It wasn’t.”

And there went the conversation. Unlike Dick, it didn’t regenerate.

“Look, I’m just going to go and talk to B,” Jason said awkwardly. Filling in conversational gaps like that was Dick’s job, not his. “If he stays in the Cave much longer he’s going to be broody enough for a dozen hens.”

Dick seemed to accept that. “What about Tim and Damian?” he asked.

“Dunno,” Jason said. Figured that Dick would be worried about them. Of course the Court couldn’t change that about him. “I don’t live here. Tim went to check on B, so they’re probably off brooding together. Couldn’t say about the little demon. If he’s anything like dear old dad he’s brooding too.”

No change in expression. Jason wondered if the Court had trained the poker face into him. And if so, how? More chopping off of facial features? No, Jason was done here. For the moment, Dick seemed to be okay. Okay-ish. “I’ll be off,” Jason said. “See you round.”

“See you round,” Dick echoed.

Jason felt Dick’s eyes on his back as he left, as if Dick was trying to work out what Jason was even doing there in the first place.

It was a short walk over to the computers, and as expected, there were two Robins and a Bat still there. Replacement and the Demon Bird hadn’t even started to change out of their costumes.

They weren’t talking. They didn’t even notice that Jason was there. Tim had three screens of chemistry up, beyond even Jason’s excellent grasp of the subject (though he’d give any family member a run for their money in explosives knowledge, Tim included). Damian had blueprints of the city sewers and maps of Gotham and was busily sticking pins in them. It looked more therapeutic than strategic.

And Bruce - Bruce was typing furiously. Jason couldn’t read his screen from his angle, but the high words-per-minute suggested a particularly dense set of notes.

Nobody was screaming at each other. Damian wasn’t trying to kill Tim. Tim wasn’t trying to hijack Damian’s finances. Bruce wasn’t chasing either of them out of the Cave.

“You guys are all on alert,” Jason said, putting a bit more swagger in his step.

Bruce looked up. Neither Robin did. “Jason,” Bruce greeted him. For the second time in half an hour, Jason felt himself subjected to a set of eyes scrutinising him. Hi Jason, how are you, not injured I hope, good work with those Talons tonight. Asking wasn’t Bruce’s style. No prizes for guessing where Tim learned it.

When Bruce didn’t say anything else, yet appeared satisfied that Jason was only a little scuffed up, he added, “Just here to make sure this Owl thing is over.”

Damian’s head snapped up at those words. “It’s not over,” he said. He never looked smaller or younger than he did when he was threatening violence. “It will not be over until every single Owl is dead for what they did to Grayson.”

Jason snorted, half turning to Bruce, and stopped dead at what he saw on the older man’s face.

Bruce didn’t disagree.

“You’re kidding me,” Jason said. “What happened to we don’t kill?” This - this was bullsh*t. The Court poked Dick with a few needles or something and he slunk back at the first opportunity, a bit the worse for wear mentally but pretty much able to be fixed, and the entire family was acting like he’d died for real. Right down to swearing vengeance. Even Bruce, by implication.

Jason knew what dying was like. It did not typically include Saturday morning cartoons.

“Talons aren’t alive,” Tim said. It sounded an awful lot like an excuse to Jason.

“Then neither’s Goldie,” Jason fired back. “We going to finish him off too?”

Damian took a step forward at that, to Jason’s malicious delight. How many Talons had the kid killed tonight? Couldn’t stand to think he might have to do the same to his precious Grayson, could he? Decapitate first and ask questions later, that was the rule with zombies. It would have sucked for him if one of the Talons he hadn’t asked questions about turned out to be big brother.

“Enough,” Bruce said. “This is not about you, Jason.”

“Yeah,” Jason said. “I can see that.”

The Bat narrowed his eyes. If the socialites he usually hung out with bare-faced saw that expression, they’d sh*t bricks. It was less effective on Jason. “This situation is not the same as your death.”

“Again, I can see that. Always knew you love Dickiebird more, Bruce. It’s not a big secret.”

It sucked to see the proof. Dick’s pain was worth more retribution than Jason’s death. It was some wacked-out health condition. It wasn’t going to kill him. The reverse, in fact. Yeah, he knew about the sh*tty side effects, but the point remained: Dick wasn’t dead, and yet the entire family was gearing up to go Owl-hunting, and from all the grim faces, they looked like they were ready for some real blood.

“I don’t love him more than you,” Bruce said. “I know you don’t believe me.”

“You are absolutely right. I don’t believe you.”

The Replacement interrupted. “None of this solves our problems. Dick’s been Talon-ised, and we need to shut the Court down for good.”

He could hear it plain as day behind the Replacement’s words: nobody cares, Jason. Bruce turned his back.

But what sucked even worse was that the Replacement was right, too. Sure, Dick was almost too annoying for words, when he had all his memories in his skull anyway, but that didn't mean he deserved whatever the f*ck the Court did to him. Which wasn't killing him. He wasn't dead.Jason knew dead.

“All right,“ he said. “Point me towards some heads to smash. My biochemistry knowledge isn’t good enough to be much help with the other thing.”

“Admitting failure so easily, Todd?” the little demon sneered at him.

“Like you can keep up with those two when they go on a science jag either,” Jason retorted.

Damian was smart enough, if he put his mind to it. Instead, like Jason, he’d put his intellectual talents to use in areas other than chemistry. Jason sure wasn’t going to argue art history or swordsmanship with the brat, just like none of them would argue classic lit with him. But when it came to whatever it took to turn a human into a zombie, they were both going to slow down Bruce and Tim.

“Then we’re agreed?” Bruce asked, voice winter cold. “You work on tracking down the Court, while Tim and I look for a cure.”

“Damn right, old man,” Jason said. “But let’s get one thing straight. Dick’s not dead. Talons aren’t dead, not like Replacement just said they are. They’re still people. Dick’s over there watching cartoons, for god’s sake, he’s not exactly a shambling zombie out for brains.”

Of the others, Tim was the only one who had the grace to look even slightly discomfited. The demonspawn glared at him. Bruce sat there stone-faced. There was no telling what he was thinking - whether he was mourning his poor dead eldest son, plotting what to do with the 'Talon' in the cell, actually planning to kill some Owls. Unbelievable.

“I’m going home,” Jason finished, disgusted. It had been a long time since he’d hated this place so much. “Let me know when you get your heads out of your asses.”

He walked out. Despite the display of temper, he knew none of them looked his way as he left. Of course they wouldn’t.

Chapter 8: Start Again

Chapter Text

Dick liked the cartoons. He had rediscovered this about himself.

He’d even got so far as to remember that he’d seen the very episode of the cartoon he was watching, something about mice trying to take over the world. What he hadn’t been able to do was laugh at it. There hadn’t been much to laugh about with the Court. One time, it couldn’t have been long after he left the labyrinth the first time, Cobb had stabbed him so deep his sword got stuck in Talon’s - Dick’s ribs. He couldn’t help it, then, and he’d burst out into hysterical laughter. What Cobb had done to him afterwards had convinced him to do his best not to laugh again.

The visits seemed to have stopped for the moment. Alfred, Bruce, all his brothers - they knew now. They’d seen. Jason in particular had been kind, though Dick’s memories of him were still the sparsest.

So now he was just going to sit in his cell for a while, he supposed. Until his family were sure of his loyalties. It was better than the Court’s training. He had had his fill of throwing knives at targets shaped like people. He had definitely had had his fill of being cut up in the name of combat practice.

When he’d bitten into his wrist to show Jason how he healed, he had realised that his trainers had succeeded in making him utterly indifferent to his own injuries. He’d bit deep, the better to make his point. Untreated, the blood loss could have been dangerous. To a proper human, anyway. And he’d ripped that vein open without a second thought. Healthy people did not do that. Was there such a thing as a psychologically healthy Talon?

All in all he was happy enough to stay here and do nothing for the moment. Watch TV, read a book, try to remember people. It would keep him going for a little while.

I wonder if Cass and Babs will visit.

He didn’t really know who Cass and Babs were - just their names. Important names, with some important facts. Cass was his sister. Tim had said that, and now Dick knew it was true. She was a quiet young woman, just older than Tim, who moved more carefully than anyone he’d ever known. They’d worked together a few times. She had played ‘bad cop’ for Nightwing once and laughed about it afterwards.

Babs, though…even less idea. Long, sweet-smelling red hair, strong arms and strong shoulders, clever fingers flashing across a keyboard. Senses. Uncomfortably intimate scraps of memory. Nothing concrete. Not her full name, her likes and dislikes, what she did for a living. Not a single conversation.

A woman he loved (or was at least very much attracted to), and he couldn’t remember her properly. He couldn’t even remember if he was just in love with her, or if they were in a relationship. He hoped they weren’t. For both their sakes. He was afraid to try and remember her.

The cartoons ended and the news came on. Dick didn’t change the channel, curious to see if the news would report on the Owls. He was not disappointed.

“Last night, Gotham was thrown into chaos by a series of coordinated assassination attempts against public officials. Most of them were thwarted by the vigilante known as Batman and his associates…”

The words of the report washed past Dick as he focused on the visuals. Someone with a camera phone at a party had recorded some of the attack. Dick watched as a Talon he recognised as his trainer after Cobb fell upon a white-haired woman in a move Dick knew would end with a sword through the woman’s head. The picture jolted wildly, screaming broke out through the ballroom, and Dick saw a splash of blood.

One man in the crowd, braver or more foolish than the others, picked up a chair and swung it at the Talon from behind. Dick knew from experience (something with the Joker, fuzzy and frightening) that getting hit by a chair was not the sort of thing you shrugged off. Unless you were Talon. Dick’s erstwhile trainer folded from the force of the blow, thanks to the demands of physics, then straightened up, turned, and killed the chair-wielder.

The film changed. Now it was someone filming from the street, a fight between a Talon who Dick didn’t know and Robin. Robin was using his sword, swinging it at vital areas without hesitation or restraint. The footage ended before Dick saw the result, but judging from the fact that Damian was alive, he could tell who won.

He wondered what had happened to Cobb.

The newscaster said, voice serious, “None of the assailants have been taken into the custody of the GCPD. It is unknown whether they are sentient. Citizens are advised to avoid confrontation.”

Only in Gotham. Superman gets to deal with robots. Much less ethically taxing.

Footsteps approached. “Jason said you were watching cartoons,” Bruce said.

“They finished,” Dick replied.

Bruce looked terrible. He hadn’t shaved. There were deep shadows under his eyes. He obviously hadn’t slept. Typical of him. “Are you willing to talk about what you remember from the Court?”

Dick stood, and nodded. After a second, he realised he was standing in the posture the Court demanded from its Talons. He slouched a little, or tried to, but it didn’t feel right anymore and he had to straighten up again. Bruce’s tired eyes watched his struggle inscrutably. “Sorry,” Dick said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Bruce said. “Follow me.”

He was being let out! Under supervision, but it was still nice. They walked past the knives Dick had set in plain view, and he itched to pick them up again, but he had not been given permission to arm himself. Bruce led him past the computers and into an open space, large as the Court’s own training area for its Talons. The Court didn’t put mats down, though, since they’d only get bloodied. There was even rigging strung up from the ceiling. Dick already ached to climb up and use it. He already knew he’d spent large amounts of time up there.

“You can, if you like,” Bruce said.

“I thought I was supposed to be reporting to you.”

A hint of a smile appeared on Bruce’s face for a second. Strangely, it made him look older, highlighting the lines around his mouth and the tiredness in his eyes. “You’ve given me reports hanging upside down from those ropes before,” he said. “Go on. I know you like using them.”

Aww, Bruce, he remembered saying, long ago. You didn’t have to. “All right,” he said. He stretched out carefully, just out of habit, then grabbed on to the ground level rope, climbed it, and swung out into the space. His parents had first taught him how to fly. Memories filled in a little as he moved, mostly of doing just this - in here, in a circus tent, to reach the rooftop of the Smith Center. The rope stung his too-soft hands, but that pain was nothing. He’d taught Damian in here. Tim, too. He remembered some of it. He thought he could even remember teaching a much smaller Jason.

After a few minutes, as long as he dared postpone the questioning, he did as Bruce had indicated, and hung upside down from a rope in front of him.

It felt wrong too, but it was harder to subtly correct than a simple change in posture, and besides, Dick wasn’t Talon.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” Bruce said. “How did the Court capture you?”

“I don’t remember,” Dick said. “The first thing I remember clearly is the labyrinth.”

“Before or after the procedure to -“ he fumbled, very slightly, over the words “- make you a Talon?”

He cast his mind back. The first time he was in the labyrinth, Cobb had broken his nose. It had stayed broken. “Before.”

“Were you given drugged water and deprived of sleep?”

Dick narrowed his eyes and swung back and forth a little on his rope. He couldn’t say why doing so entertained him, but it did. “You’ve been in the labyrinth too,” he said, certain of it. “How did you escape?” Because Bruce - Batman - wouldn’t have killed to get out. He wouldn’t have done what Talon did.

“I found the room with the coffins. There was an exit to the sewers not far from there.”

“An exit?” Dick asked faintly, and dropped to the ground, right side up. He searched Bruce’s face for some sign he was lying. “There was an exit right there?” He could have made a break for it, instead of allowing himself to be frozen. He could have walked out.

Slowly, Bruce nodded.

Unlike laughing, Talon had not wept while he was with the Court. He’d wanted to - in the coffin, when he killed for them, after he’d been killed for the third time in a training session but they wouldn’t let him die - but he hadn’t dared. Either of his trainers would have cut out his eyes for it. And now he wanted to cry even more, out of sheer frustration, and he couldn’t. Instead, he did as he was trained, and just stood there waiting for instruction or prompting.

“Nobody blames you for not escaping,” Bruce said.

Damian did. Talon had got himself caught by a “third-rate pack of conspiracy theorists” according to him. Damian was wrong about the Court, of course. They were the conspiracy theory itself, not its exponents, and they were hardly third-rate, but even so, Damian blamed him. Not that Talon - Dick, he was Dick - was going to contradict Bruce.

He should apologise to Robin, he thought. He should have been able to escape. That was on him. Meanwhile, Bruce clearly wanted a response. “If you say so,” Dick said.

“It’s not important,” Bruce said. “I need to tell me everything you learned about the Owls.”

“Not the Talons?”

“The Owls,” Bruce said firmly.

Dick told him everything he could. The Owls had always worn masks when they were in the Court, but in other ways they were careless around Talon. He described the Owls’ leader, the bulky dark-haired man who now he had his freedom he could say reminded him of Bruce.

“Lincoln March,” Bruce growled. “He’s still at large. He underwent the process to make him a Talon, and when I fought him, he was calling himself ‘Owlman.’”

Why would anyone do this to themselves? Healing factors always sounded good in theory. They weren’t worth it. The coffin was barely a threat to a normal human; they’d just die and that would be the end of it. Dick, and anyone like Dick, had to live through it. And keep living through it, going mad from the cold and the silence and the constant awareness.

“Continue,” Bruce prompted him, and Dick obeyed. No faces, no names - but heights, builds, approximate ages, hair colour, unusual ways of moving, those could all be discerned. He had taken especial note of jewelry. A detailed description of one female Owl’s necklace (white gold, rope chain, emeralds) led Bruce to growl the name “Wilhelmina Busst.” A Rolex watch (diamond inlay) prompted Bruce to name a Simon Nichols. Other pieces were less distinctive, but went into Bruce’s notes nevertheless.

By the end of his recitation, Bruce was sitting upright with a rigidity that said to Dick he was running on willpower alone. As for Dick, he felt a little mental strain. He wanted to be tired. He wanted to have to fall into bed and sleep for twelve hours, dead to the world.

“You should sleep,” Dick said, as he heard Alfred approach.

“I’m fine. I’ll sleep later.”

From behind them, Alfred said, “He’s been saying that for the last forty-eight hours.” He was carrying a tray of food anyway, though it conspicuously lacked coffee. “Master Bruce, I must insist you rest. Even Masters Timothy and Damian have found time to rest. Even if it was only for a few hours.”

“I have work to do,” Bruce ground out.

Alfred looked askance, and then at Dick. A second too late, Dick realised that Alfred wanted him to say something. “It’s not urgent,” Dick tried. ‘How to wrangle Batman’ was one of the many blank spots in his mind. “The Court will still be regrouping.”

Bruce’s face was haunted as he turned to Dick. “Your situation is urgent.”

—

In the end, after a light meal, Bruce did agree to sleep. Dick was relieved. He didn’t want Bruce working himself into the ground for Dick’s sake. Dick had killed people for no better reason than the Court said to. This was what he’d deserved. They’d made him Talon, and then he’d acted accordingly. He had no right to complain.

If Bruce found a cure, though, Dick wouldn’t say no. For one thing, rejecting it would probably only hurt Bruce even more. That was hypothetical, though. Bruce probably wouldn’t want to sink effort into improving a murderer’s quality of life.

“I notice you’re picking at your food again, Master Richard,” Alfred said.

Alfred hadn’t insisted he go back into the holding cell. Dick wasn’t saying no to being allowed free run of the Cave either. If he knew Bruce, which he sort of did at the moment, there’d be something down here to stop him if he went berserk and started trying to kill Alfred. Not that it was in Dick’s plans.

“It tastes strange,” Dick said. “Not bad,” he hastened to assure him, “Just…not like I remember.”

“I’m not sure how I should take that, coming from a young man struggling with temporary amnesia.”

“You have a point.” Even the stuff Alfred hadn’t cooked himself tasted weird. He hadn’t been able to have more than a sip or two of the coffee Alfred had brought him after Bruce had left to sleep. It was so much bitterer than he remembered. “If it helps, I only remember you making tasty food.”

“I see your instincts for flattery remain intact.”

Dick managed to smile.

He spent the afternoon (at least, the clocks said it was afternoon) in the rigging that had been set up for him once upon a time. It felt good to be able to exercise freely. The adrenaline rush was missing, though, and no matter how close to the ground he let himself fall he couldn’t seem to get it. After not even the shock of becoming Talon had triggered adrenaline rush, he hadn’t expected to feel it now. It was still disappointing not to feel it.

On the upside, he still enjoyed trapeze. He was still contentedly swinging around when Tim came back to the Cave.

His brother started when he realised Dick was out and about. “Dick? Did Bruce let you out already?”

“Alfred did,” Dick told him. It wasn’t hard to tell that Alfred had a lot of say in who got to go where in this house. “I can stay back if it makes you feel better.”

“No, it’s fine,” Tim told him. “But I’m not sparring with you.”

“I understand.” He didn’t want to spar with Tim either. After a few weeks sparring solely against people who he could kill without killing them, it was too much of a risk. Bruce’s injunction of training dummies only, and even then only under supervision, made sense. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt his family. “What are you doing?”

Tim’s eyes flicked up to meet his, and just as quickly flicked away again. “Bruce and I want to find a cure for you,” he said.

Hope flared in him. “Really?” They were really going to try. Regardless of whether he deserved it, it would be nice…

“We can’t leave you like this.” Tim was fidgeting. Nervous. Nervous of him? Of what he might do? Or what he might say? Eventually, he turned big blue eyes up at Dick. “It’s just not you,” he said, and looked away again, turning towards his computer and opening a file.

He couldn’t bear to look at Dick, Talon, and that hurt worse than any ban on sparring ever could.

Nor did Talon know how to respond to Tim’s assertion. He still didn’t reallly know what he’d been like before the labyrinth. A secret enemy of the Court, one of Gotham’s protectors. But the Court said they protected Gotham too, so he knew ‘protecting Gotham’ wasn’t necessarily an indicator of moral character. “Is there anything I can do to help?” Dick asked.

Tim shook his head. “Not except tell us everything you remember. Do you know what it is they did to you, exactly?”

Uh-oh, Tim’s in full-on business mode. Still, it was a clear question. He could answer. “No,” he said. There was too much that was too vague. He was glad he couldn’t remember it properly. “I think they injected me with something. I wasn't in a position to ask.”

“That’s not very specific,” Tim said. “Not surprising though.”

He hadn’t been there to add to the Court’s scientific talent, that was for sure. “Whatever they injected me with was clear,” he added. And hurt a lot. He didn’t want to tell Tim that. He wasn’t sure how much good the information would do.

Tim made a noise in the back of his throat. “Well, we can rule out injections of kool-aid, then.” He typed a note anyway. “Where did they inject you?”

Dick hesitated. “I don’t remember.” It was all just pain.

“Then how do you know they injected you? No offense, but I don’t think you’d be able to see needle marks afterwards.”

“I saw the needles. Big needles.” I don’t think they were there for the Owls.

Tim didn’t look at him. “Why don’t you remember the procedure, Dick?”

“Because it hurt,” Dick said.

He should have known Tim would find out anyway. That was what Tim did. And he’d been right about how this would affect him, too. His brother was too well-trained to flinch obviously, but his otherwise steady typing stuttered, just for a second. “I think Leslie and Bruce will have to ask you more of these questions,” he said. “They both know more than I do about anatomy and medicine.”

He couldn’t meet Dick’s eyes. His yellow, not-human eyes. It was a way for Tim to avoid asking any more questions, Dick realised. Pawning it off on Bruce and…who?

“Who’s Leslie?” he asked instead. He could not talk about things too. So could Bruce. The entire family was shaping up to be good at failing to communicate.

“Family doctor.”

No memories rose to meet the information. It was frustrating. He was already sick of having to go on a miniature treasure hunt through his own head at every reminder of the life he’d had before the Court. “I’ll find out more when I meet her,” he sighed.

“I suppose,” Tim agreed.

He didn’t say anything more. Dick went looking for more memories. He used to talk to Tim a lot, he knew it. They’d always got on well. Now Tim couldn’t stand the sight of him, let alone bear to talk to him. Dick retreated to the rigging to watch. Once, he might have heckled Tim from the height. He thought he could remember something like that. Now he was more strongly reminded of perching in the labyrinth waiting for his victims. It made him feel sick to his stomach.

Had they worked it out yet? That he’d killed? Talon closed his eyes and tried not to remember.

Chapter 9: Big Bro

Chapter Text

Usually, the main problem Damian had after an all-night patrol was sleeping too long. Activity of such duration was tiring, and Damian was only human; he needed to rest, inefficient as it was. However, sleeping out of the times his circadian rhythms told him was best was highly undesirable. His father still insisted that he attend school, after all, and disliked it when Damian blatantly slept through his classes.

Sleeping too much was not his problem today. He tossed and turned for a while and failed to sleep despite the exhaustion he could feel in his body. The sun was too bright, he decided, even through the heavy curtains. Damian screwed his eyes up and tried to ignore it.

In such situations of distress, he would usually go to Grayson, if he could. Not for comfort or anything like that. Grayson had a west-facing room. It was far better for sleeping in the mornings.

Grayson was downstairs and didn’t remember anything about mornings like this.

He had not been prepared, Damian concluded. He had allowed himself to believe in Grayson’s inane promises of ’Batman and Robin will never die.’ He had behaved like - like a child, believing the adults he cared for were invincible and immortal. Foolish. Juvenile.

It wasn’t as though Grayson was dead, though. He was alive, if not well, and safely detained in Father’s holding cell. If Damian chose, he could go downstairs and shout at the man some more for his foolishness in being captured. Why should anything have changed? Despite the skin and the eyes, in spite of the Court’s intentions for him, it was still Grayson, not some mindless tool. Wasn’t it?

He had beheaded some of those mindless tools just hours ago. At the time he had thought nothing of it. Todd had done the same.

Todd saw the Talons as human and had killed them anyway. He had been adamant on the matter. Talons weren’t dead. Talons were people. If that was true, Damian had broken his father’s rules several times over. Todd might not care, but Damian did.

If they were dead, and weren’t people, then Grayson was dead and it wasn’t really Grayson in the cell.

Damian gave up on sleeping.

When he went down to the kitchen, Pennyworth fixed him with an expression Damian had long since learned to interpret as acute displeasure. “Have you slept, Master Damian?” he asked.

“Some,” Damian lied. Not that he truly expected to fool Pennyworth. Pennyworth would take ‘some’ as an indication that Damian had tried to sleep, which indeed he had, and there were times in this house where it counted that he’d made the attempt, even if he failed.

As expected, Pennyworth raised an eyebrow and said, “Very well. You are to take it easy today, Master Damian.”

“Yes, Pennyworth.”

He had no intention of taking it easy. He ate the food Pennyworth served him without really tasting it. “Where is Father?” he asked at one point.

“Asleep,” Pennyworth said, the as you should be unstated. “There is to be no disturbing him except in an emergency. He only went to bed an hour ago. Master Timothy is awake and downstairs.”

With Grayson. Drake had said he didn’t believe Talons were alive. Damian scowled to himself. Grayson wasn’t a Talon. That only referred to his current physical state. Drake would be trying to fix it, Father too. And Damian…he needed clarity. He wanted revenge.

He thought he might know how to start.

It took an hour to get there, the greatest part of that time waiting for Pennyworth to go downstairs to check on Grayson and Drake so Damian could make a clean escape. It wasn’t as though as he had lied to Pennyworth. The old man had only said that he should ‘take it easy.’ Crossing the city wasn’t hard. The only difficult part would be convincing Todd to open the door to his safehouse.

The safehouse in question was in an apartment block that was only a little run down, next to a bad neighbourhood but not in it. Todd might have an affinity for the slums, but a safehouse where one ran the risk of being ambushed on the way in or out defeated the purpose. Even the Red Hood knew that.

Still, the place was poor enough that Damian stood out in his civilian clothing. Perhaps he should have waited until tonight and come in costume, by the rooftops.

No, the chance of missing Todd in that case was unacceptable.

He found the door and knocked on it. It was mere seconds before he heard the clatter of Todd unlocking whatever latches kept it secure. “Todd,” Damian greeted him.

“The f*ck,” Todd said, “You know how to use a door?”

“Of course I know how to use a door,” Damian huffed. “Are you going to let me in or not?”

Todd opened the door. As soon as Damian stepped through he slammed it behind him and started chaining it up again. “First the Replacement, now you. Is the big man going to be next?”

“Father knows exactly where you live. How do you think I learned of this location?”

Another possibility leapt to his mind immediately. Grayson. Grayson could have told him. Grayson would have told him, if he had asked. Grayson was also a fool who blocked off his own memories and couldn’t get them back. Damian scowled.

“Want a beer?” Todd asked, turning his back on Damian and crossing to his refrigerator. He was acting as though Damian was one of his inane friends. The archer, perhaps.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I didn’t offer Tim a beer.”

“You are goading me.” Damian scowled harder. “Be serious.”

Todd shut his fridge, a beer of his own in hand. “If you’re not here for a beer, Angry Bird, I don’t know what you’re here for.”

“You do know what I’m here for,” he insisted. “You were going to hunt down the Owls. I came to get your assistance in the matter. I want a plan of attack.”

“That’s not it,” Todd said, fixing him with a bright blue-green glare. “You’re here ‘cause of Dick, and you’re feeling bad ‘cause you lopped off a bunch of heads last night without checking if they were attached to actual people first. What scares you worse, huh? The idea of breaking daddy’s rules, or that Dick might actually be dead?”

“He’s not dead!” Damian snarled.

Todd smirked. “So the second one then. Congratulations. You’ve broken Daddy’s no-killing rules.” He paused, sipped his beer, and added, “Mind you, as far as I’m concerned, you’d broken them anyway. Not that I care about those. It’s not got a damn thing to do whether you think Dick’s alive or not, ‘cause he’s f*cking alive no matter what Bats is brooding about.”

His confidence was reassuring. Damian tried not to let it show on his face. “What, exactly, makes you think you know better than Father on this subject?” he asked.

“Everyone knows your dad’s not into philosophy.” He glanced aside to one of his overstuffed bookshelves. “Isn’t it obvious, though? Even if he’s doing the creepy staring thing, would anyone but Dick get back from a month of being kidnapped and sit down in front of the cartoons?”

“He was watching infomercials when I saw him.”

“Same difference. That’s Dick all over.”

“And that is enough to make you conclude that he is alive?”

“Sure. What, haven’t you talked to him? Did you just do what Replacement would do and spy on him through Bruce’s surveillance?”

Damian had not talked to him since he had fled from the sight of Grayson and his too-pale skin and his stiff body language. No matter what Todd said, the person in the cell seemed to be un-Grayson in some important ways. Yet the alternative was that he was truly dead, and that was too terrible to contemplate. “Briefly.”

“Look at it this way - he’s less likely to die on you now than ever before.”

“That is acceptable,” Damian decided. He narrowed his eyes at Todd, recalling the other part of the older man’s rant the night before. “But if you think this means I will not extract my full measure of retribution for what was done to him, you are sorely mistaken.”

Todd took another deep swig of his beer. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Then this is to be a joint endeavour?”

“Joint endeavour. Yeah. Sure, why not?”

—

Todd ordered some disgusting takeout for them before he would consent to a more detailed planning session. “It’s traditional,” he said, dumping a slice of thankfully vegetarian pizza on his plate. “Takeout and plans to wreak revenge on your enemies. Besides, Alfred wouldn’t be pleased if I let you stay at my place and skip meals.”

“I came to plan how we would take down the Owls, not for a dinner party!”

“All in good time.”

Damian had had worse pizza, he supposed. When he had finished his second slice, he asked, “Now can we get to business?”

Todd’s workstations were different to anything in Father’s cave. Though tidy, the limited space in the apartment created the impression of clutter nevertheless. There were more shelves, more books, more pens, and more papers - Damian knew the Red Hood was a more-than-competent hacker, as were they all, but he clearly preferred to take notes the old-fashioned way.

He’d also hooked the computer containing vigilante-related research into the main entertainment systems of his home, Damian realised as Todd projected a map of Gotham on the only blank wall in his home.

“What?” Todd asked, catching Damian’s expression. “I’m legally dead and don’t have a day job. Everyone who comes in here already knows.”

There was some merit to that argument, Damian supposed.

“Who were you guarding last night?” Todd asked from behind his computer.

“Lucius Fox, Katrina Willis, and Carrick Carmichael in Otisburg. Once I defeated the Talons sent to kill them, I was closest to the army reserves training on the northern outskirts, so I went there to lend my assistance.” Nor had they been very grateful. Out-of-towners who hadn’t known a Robin when they saw one, much less appreciated it when they were saved from Gotham’s all-too-common threats.

Green dots appeared on the map where Damian reported. Profiles of the people Damian had guarded came up next to them. “Fox and Willis were definitely targets,” Damian said. “I caught a Talon attempting to enter Carmichael’s building. I cannot confirm whether the Court truly sought to kill him, or someone else.”

“The Replacement went to City Hall to protect whatever councillors were there,” Todd said, adding a bright yellow dot. “Goldie was there too.” A blue dot appeared. He defended the Mayor, Damian reminded himself. It was Grayson. Grayson didn’t kill.

“Father and Pennyworth defended themselves,” he added. “Gordon defended her father.”

“And we can be sure the Court was targeting them.” Grey, white, and purple dots appeared. Todd used the same colours to identify them as Father did, Damian noticed. The list of confirmed targets expanded along the side. “I was at the railyard.”

A red dot bloomed over the appropriate location. “I was at the railyard,” Todd continued. “Steve Hutchins was on their list, plus I found another Talon heading away from the harbour.”

“Who did the Owls want dead there?”

“Harbourmaster,” Todd said. “Got him, too.”

“They also attacked the ball at Zondervan House,” Damian said. “Father was supposed to attend.”

“It made it to the news. Elizabeth Trevalley and Roger Ismay.”

“Trevalley was the target. Ismay attempted to intervene.”

Todd snorted. “Sounds like that went well. Hello, what have we here? Police report!”

The list of people they had failed to save from the Talons was long. With Batman under attack and then distracted by Owlman, and Nightwing…absent, it had been Robin, Red Hood, Red Robin, and Batgirl. They had eventually subdued most of the Talons sent out, but not before they had hit at least some of their targets. The city comptroller, the deputy sheriff, the commissioner of cultural affairs, the head of the city planning commission, more than a few of the public-focused judges and lawyers… and then there were the civilians who were apparently collateral damage. It was more than an hour before Damian and Todd were satisfied with their work identifying targets. It was two hours more before they had mapped out every known Talon attack the previous night, the task Damian had started on back in the Cave. Damian was almost considering having a third slice of pizza. Before he could, Todd shoved a bowl of ice cream under his nose.

“Now I guess the problem is working out which ones the Owls really wanted dead and who was just taking the opportunity for a little private vengeance,” Todd said. “Some of these don’t look vital to the control of the city to me.”

“And once we work out which are petty revenge, discovering the Owls who ordered it will be that much easier,” Damian concluded. “I suggest we start with the doctor. Jacob Alvarez.” Unlike most of the names on their list of targets, Alvarez had no ties to civic governance. He was a surgeon, nothing more. Nobody aiming solely to take over the city would bother murdering him.

“That’s the standout. Someone’s definitely got a grudge and doesn't mind risking the integrity of their mission. Corrupt and selfish is as corrupt and selfishdoes.”

It was getting late now, near patrol time. If they patrolled, which Damian assumed they would. It was a weekend, after all. “I need to return to the manor,” he said. “Send me copies of our work tonight.”

“Sure, sure. Eat your ice cream, kid.”

Damian did so, but only because not eating the ice cream would have been impolite. “Thank you for your hospitality,” he said, once he had emptied the bowl. “I’ll be going.”

“Robin.”

Damian stopped in his tracks. Todd hardly ever addressed him as ‘Robin.’ He looked back. “What is it, Todd?”

“At least one of us is going to have to talk to Dick about this, and if I go back to the Manor, I’m going to punch your dad in the face.”

It made sense. Damian knew it made sense. Despite appearances, and no matter what Damian said, Grayson was not actually a fool. He knew how to gather information whilst imprisoned, and cajoling people into speaking freely in front of him was something of a specialty of his. If he didn’t have more knowledge of the Court than they did, Damian might be forced to reconsider whether it was truly Grayson who had returned.

“I will speak to him,” Damian said stiffly. “You do not need to trouble yourself interacting with Father if it bothers you so much. It’s like you said. Grayson is still Grayson.”

Even so, it weighed on him all the way back to the Manor. Grayson was Grayson was Grayson. Not even being Batman had changed him much. Admittedly, Damian had not known him for long before that point. Now he looked differently, moved differently. Remembered differently.

Damian did not like it.

When he let himself back into the house, Pennyworth did not comment. His father was at the table in the kitchen, steadily eating with the sort of focus Damian associated with him on a particularly difficult case. It wasn’t hard to guess what was bothering him. “You’ve been out,” his father said.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Nowhere special.”

Father narrowed his eyes. “Jason’s.”

Damian did not answer. What would be the point?

“What progress did you make?”

Pennyworth cleared his throat as he continued preparing whatever food he was preparing. “As per the rules of this house, gentlemen, this discussion should not be taking place above stairs,” he said.

As one, Damian and his father both glared. “It’s Grayson,” Damian said. Which explained everything. No matter how jealous Todd might get, the rest of them could agree that Grayson was worth breaking a few rules for. It wasn’t like there was anyone up here who didn’t already know.

“I know, Master Damian,” Pennyworth said, and held out the tray he’d prepared. “Now, take that down to him. Master Richard may not, strictly speaking, need to eat at the moment, but he ought to be included in mealtimes all the same.”

Damian scowled, but accepted the tray. The menial work was beneath him, but Pennyworth had a point. Grayson should eat. He got…disagreeable, when he didn’t. Not that the trayful of food that was either bland or sweet would cheer anyone up. Where were the other flavours? He knew Grayson had always had a sweet tooth, but this was ridiculous. “Todd and I mapped the locations of Talon attacks and drew up rough profiles of several victims,” he answered his father. “I will speak to Grayson to confirm.”

His father nodded. “I spoke to him earlier and made a list of suspected Owls.”

“Downstairs,” Pennyworth repeated.

Damian acquiesced.

His footsteps felt heavy. He did not want to see Grayson as a Talon again. Grayson was Grayson, he reminded himself, and Grayson was not dead.

This time, Grayson was reading rather than watching TV, apparently content to be confined to his cell. That was as unnatural for him as the rest of it. Under the fluorescent lights of the Cave, he was still far too white, and his now-yellow eyes stood out hideously. “I have brought you food, Grayson,” Damian announced.

As he had the day before, Grayson flinched away from his own name. “Don’t call me that,” he said. “I’m Dick.”

“I refuse to call you by your ridiculous nickname,” Damian said. “It is demeaning. I’ve always called you Grayson.”

“Have you?” Grayson tilted his head in that hateful manner. “I don’t remember. They called me Gray Son. That’s why I don’t like it.”

Damian’s hackles rose. He did not want to be like the Court to Grayson. Damian wasn’t like them. He would never do something like - that - to anyone. Let alone Grayson. So even it if meant changing his preferred form of address…he didn’t like it. First names were…intimate. But he would do it if it meant not calling him something similar to what the Court called him. Even if it was Grayson's name.

“Very well. If it will assist you in throwing off whatever brainwashing they may have tried on you, then I suppose I could call you Richard.” Pennyworth called him Richard. It wouldn’t be so bad. Damian could adjust to this.

Suddenly, Grayson - Richard’s - mouth curved in a smile. The shape of it was familiar, on unfamiliar colouring that threw it into a harsher light. His voice was as kind as it ever had been when he said, “Always so gracious, Little D.”

“You do remember,” Damian said. He scowled. Father had said Richard didn’t remember.

“Some of it,” Richard said.

At least Richard hadn’t forgotten everything, though Damian did dislike the inconsistency. He opened the door to the cell. He had been charged to deliver the meal to Richard, and deliver it he would.

When he stepped through, Richard reached out to him, and ruffled his hair. Tentatively, but he did so.

He’d done it more often than Damian would like to admit. Damian liked it more than he would like to admit, too. Grayson’s fingers in his hair felt just the same. Exactly the same. The Court hadn’t changed that.

Chapter 10: Business as Usual

Chapter Text

It looked as though Damian had sorted a few things out with Dick, Bruce thought as he turned his attention away from the cell’s camera. On the one hand he was relieved, on the other somewhat disturbed. When Damian was emotional, regardless of what emotion it was, he could channel his energy in unpredictable ways.

For instance, Damian had never visited Jason of his own volition before.

And Dick…he seemed slightly more at ease. In fact, he was almost too much at ease. Normally, 24 hours into containment he was bouncing off the walls and demanding tests done faster so he could get out of there. Now, though, the only sign of discontent he’d shown was occasionally pacing around the tiny cell. That, he did not believe was due to Dick’s current memory loss. Rather, he believed that to be the Court’s work, beating him (or worse) out of showing signs of his personality and desires, including the desire to be out in a more open space.

Dick hadn’t totally succumbed to their training. That was a relief. He had smiled and laughed a few times since returning, engaged with all three of his brothers and Alfred to a certain extent. Bruce was cautiously optimistic.

Today, before patrol, he had to see how Nightwing’s combat skills had been tampered with. Dick had tried to be subtle about it, but he was keeping his sash of knives in view. True, the family went out with equally lethal objects on a regular basis, but there was more than one reason he made bat-arangs rather than regular throwing stars. They were not meant to kill, and were most often used on ropes. Those knives, however…they were meant for nothing but death. Still he thought he could understand why Dick had become to attached to them. They would literally have been something to cling to in a harsh and dangerous place.

He would rather stay home this evening and do his best to see Dick on his way to mental recovery, or work more on finding a cure for the process that had made Dick a Talon, or failing those options investigate the Owls further, than go out on patrol tonight, but there was other business that was also important. Gotham had to come first.

Patrol tonight would have to focus on restoring order. The Owls had succeeded in changing the signal on the roof of the GCPD to their own - even if Batgirl had changed it back, it had been a powerful statement. Many civilians had been murdered by the Talons; tonight had to be a night to show the citizens of Gotham that it was still the Bat who had the streets.

Then he would come home and continue trying to fix this.

Tim was downstairs, working hard on the secondary research he would need to be helpful in trying to reverse Dick’s condition. Bruce didn’t disturb him, just made a beeline to Dick’s cell. Damian was just leaving, and he glared at Bruce on his way past. He didn’t know why.

“Dick,” he greeted his son. “Would you be interested in some supervised combat training?”

Dick smiled, quickly, the expression gone as soon as it came. “Yes,” he said.

Years of mastering his own body’s reactions prevented him from reacting in turn to how different that brilliant smile looked now. In spite of himself, Bruce was reminded of the Talons who had chased him through his own house. They had enjoyed it. Relished every second of the hunt. He had been sport to them. It was fortunate, Bruce thought, that he had not seen their faces.

Technically, he supposed, the smile was the same. It was only the face that was different. Even then, it was only the colouring. Still Dick looked like the reanimated corpse the Court had made him.

Bruce opened the cell. Dick followed him obediently, always a step behind, never closing enough to be a threat. When they reached the rigging again, Dick did not pick up any weapons or make any suggestions, but waited silently for instructions. He’d definitely have to train Nightwing into showing a bit more initiative. He’d never had that problem with Nightwing before.

“Stretch,” he said, out of habit.

To his relief, Dick started on exactly the same stretching regime as he’d always used. Dick had always been very careful about stretching and flexibility, a habit he’d had before Bruce had ever started training him, and which he’d ascribed to his parents’ teachings. The Court had not trained that care out of him.

Then Dick picked up his escrima sticks.

The basic practice started well. As expected, Dick didn’t seem to have lost a shred of physical fitness. That was the least of his concerns; physical fitness could be regained. As Dick attempted more complicated moves on the training dummies, his grip on the weapons seemed increasingly unsure, their placement not quite so precise. Still Dick continued, until, in a flash, he drove the end of one stick into the dummy and set off the lethal force alert.

They both recoiled from the grating sound of the alarm. “I’m sorry,” Dick said.

As far as Bruce was concerned, Dick had nothing to apologise for. Bruce was the one who had failed to realise even the existence of the Court, let alone the threat it posed. He was the one who had failed to protect Dick, even when he knew the Court had an interest in him. He had even failed to rescue Dick, when the Court had held them both. Unable to say it, unable to stand the idea of Dick looking up at him through changed eyes and saying it’s not your fault, Bruce, he said, “Again.”

Without hesitation, Dick leapt back into action. It was another five minutes before he triggered the lethal force alert again. Grim expression on his face, Dick tried again. Two minutes. Again, and three minutes. Each time, the fight ended with Dick ‘killing’ the mannequin.

After another three attempts - Dick wasn’t out of breath, hadn’t raised a sweat - Bruce said, “Enough.”

“I’m sorry,” Dick said again, making it two apologies in a row.

“Try the batarangs. Do you remember where the targets are?”

Dick didn’t turn around, but rather concentrated. After a second he said, “Yes.” Sure enough, he turned and went straight to them. He did not pick any up, but waited for permission. Bruce nodded.

His aim was off. Not far, but enough to be dangerous to anyone he threw a batarang at. That was clear. “Try the knives the Court gave you,” Bruce suggested. They were clearly meant for throwing.

For all that Dick had waited to take the knives up, he did so with an eagerness Bruce hadn’t seen with the batarangs. His aim with those was superb, every missile flying into a vital point with lethal accuracy. And lethal was the word. Just as he had with the mannequin, Dick set off the deadly force alerts with each knife.

He had always known Dick was technically capable of that sort of violence. It was a bit different to see it in this context.

“Aim for the non-vital areas,” Bruce instructed.

Dick tried. Bruce could see that he tried. This time, the knives were thrown unerringly into places on the mannequins that were merely very dangerous and put the person struck at great risk of severe, possibly permanent, injury. This time, Dick didn’t even bother to apologise. He just hung his head. He knew his performance was unacceptable. “I’ll practice more,” he said.

“That would be appropriate,” Bruce agreed. “When you have retrained yourself, then we can start talking about allowing you to be Nightwing again. Until then -“

“I won’t be Nightwing,” Dick finished. “I understand.”

His voice was thick with disappointment. Bruce could see that he really did understand, but that clearly made it no easier to bear. He hated to forbid Nightwing from Gotham as well. “I see no reason why you could not be back within a few weeks. You’ve had injuries that kept you benched longer.”

“I broke my leg once,” Dick said. “And - was I shot?” A hand drifted towards the shoulder the Joker had hit him in. The wound for which Bruce had fired him.

“Yes,” Bruce confirmed for him, though it was not the sort of thing he would prefer Dick to remember. The rest of it would come back, he assumed. Bit by bit. Sooner or later Dick would be as good as his old self again.

There would be no going back entirely. No more than Jason had ever been the same after he’d been brutally murdered too. The best any of them could hope for was a bit more metaphorically battered.

And physically changed. There would be no erasing the experiences Dick must have had. They train Talons to ignore pain and disregard wounds, Dick had said. It did not take even half a brain to work out that the Court’s training in this regard was to inflict pain and to wound him, and then to force him to fight regardless. A Talon could stand an awful lot of pain and wounding. That in itself was a massive change. And the change to his life - they would need to start thinking about how they could reintroduce Dick to a civilian existence, should a cure not be immediately forthcoming. It wasn’t fair to keep him locked away down here. The Court had done that to him too.

He should have been able to stop it. It was his failure. His responsiblity. It killed him to hear Dick apologise.

“Are you going on patrol now?” Dick asked.

“The Owls nearly overran the city last night,” he said. “The city needs us out there. We will need you too, when you’re ready again.”

Dick looked up at him with fierce golden eyes. He already knew Dick’s strength of spirit wasn’t lost, only hidden - his interactions with Damian proved that well enough. It was good to see it for himself. “I’ll get better,” he promised. “I know how, I just have to make it a habit again. I’ll practice as long as it takes.”

“I believe you,” Bruce said. They turned away from each other, and the last thing Batman heard before getting in the car was the sound of the lethal force alert as Dick set it off again. But it had taken a bit longer this time. Nightwing would be back soon. Dick would make sure of it.

—

“Heard you had a busy night last night,” the Commissioner said, as soon as he realised Batman was there.

“Jim,” Batman greeted him. “I heard you had a busy night yourself.”

“Batgirl had things under control, from what I could see.”

“She usually does.”

Gordon knew to keep pride out of his voice. Pride would be a giveaway, and Gordon had been a cop long enough to know that a secret was safest kept by only those who needed to know. Batman had never investigated what Jim Gordon did or did not know about their identities. He’d never had to.

“What do you have for me tonight?” Batman asked.

“I was hoping you could tell me more,” Gordon said. “We’ve got a long list of dead Gotham notables and not a single person in custody. I know your people were fighting the Owls - a few of my people cleaned up after Robin and the Red Hood. I’m assuming that these…Talons…aren’t alive, by the way.”

His mouth felt dry. “We did not believe so.”

“Did?” Gordon asked sharply. “Past tense?”

“The evidence is conflicting.”

“Conflicting?"

“Some of them have shown indications of independent thought. My best information is that at least some of them were kidnapped by the Court of Owls and forced into service as assassins. Some of them…retain themselves…in spite of what was done to them. Make no mistake, Jim, as far as biology is concerned, every one of them is already dead.”

“But you’re still concerned that you’re dealing with sentient beings. Victims of crime.” Gordon’s hand went to his mouth, in the tic that betrayed his desire for a cigarette. “You have one in custody, don’t you.”

Somewhere along the line, he’d allowed Gordon to get to know him far too well. He didn’t often regret it, but tonight he certainly did. He declined to answer.

“Christ.” Gordon turned his back momentarily, another indication of his distress. “I don’t suppose you’d consider turning - him? her? - over to us.”

“He’s committed no crimes, to my knowledge,” Batman said steadfastly. “He came to us of his own free will.”

Admittedly, he hadn’t asked Dick about his own actions while imprisoned by the Court. But he would. He had to. If Dick had killed while he was with the Court - if, when even the most naive could guess that the Court would not send their prize to kill Gotham’s Mayor unblooded. If Dick had killed, when Bruce had left him retraining himself how not to.

Without his memories, tortured and abused, all with the aim of making Dick believe he was nothing more than a weapon to be wielded by others, how responsible could Bruce hold him? What would be fair? Just?

He did not want to ask Dick.

Gordon gave him a long, hard look. “I suppose I can’t make you hand this Talon over for questioning and allow the GCPD to determine whether he should be charged.”

“You cannot.” This was a family matter. Dick was his. He couldn’t hand him over to the GCPD. He’d never turned Jason in, after all; how could he possibly do less for Dick? If it was necessary. If, always if. He didn’t know. There was a somewhat tense silence, before Batman asked, “Is Arkham secure?”

“Somehow,” Gordon said. So the topic had successfully been dropped. “Restless, though. The Joker’s acting like he’s got a plan. Dent, too. I was surprised the Owls didn’t try to break them all out.”

“The Owls want order in Gotham,” Batman said. “Their order, but they have no interest in the chaos of Arkham. I have some leads to pursue. With luck, you will be able to send some of them to Blackgate as they deserve.”

“Leads, huh? What sort of leads?”

Batman did not usually share quite so many details of his investigations with Gordon when he wasn’t sure where they stood, nor when his information was this uncertain. “Identifying jewelry,” he said. “The Owls themselves hide their faces even from their servants.”

“Ah.”

Jewelry could be removed. In the case of such expensive jewelry as Dick had described to him, it was vanishingly rare for anyone but its owner to wear the piece, but it could be lent out or stolen. It was a good indicator, but not a positive identification. “I’ve set Robin to tracking them down as well. The Red Hood is assisting him."

“I’d feel better with Nightwing or Red Robin on this case,” Gordon said bluntly.

“Red Robin is working on this case,” Batman said. “Another aspect of it. As for the Red Hood, he’s independent. He’s assisting Robin of his own volition.”

“Bullsh*t. On something this big, he answers to you.”

“Not on this. He’s assisting Robin on his own initiative.”

“I just don’t want more heads rolling in the streets,” Gordon said. “There was enough of that last night.”

“Robin will not be a problem,” Batman replied stiffly. “He is…properly motivated…to resolve any further conflicts with the Talons with minimal violence.” The Owls were another matter. He would have to keep a careful eye on Damian and Jason when they managed to find the Court itself. And they would. Batman knew that they would.

Gordon sighed heavily. “You’ll tell me what you want to tell me.” He wasn’t usually so testy, but Batman knew Gordon had never fully trusted Robin, and the long night - or rather, the long day in public that being Commissioner demanded, preceded and followed by long nights - were gruelling. He supposed Gordon was entitled to a measure of terseness.

A small measure. Batman wasn’t in the mood for any official questions about any of the Robins.

“I have some information for you,” he said, offering a USB stick. “Confirmed locations of some of their above-ground lairs.”

Gordon took it with a nod. “Some of my boys saw a Talon heading into the sewers at the manhole near Wallbury and Cherson. They said it seemed like she knew where she was going, so they lost her pretty fast. Don’t know if that helps.”

“It does,” Batman said. It was a new data point. “Your men may have narrowly avoided an unpleasant fate.”

Even he had barely survived the Owls’ labyrinth. Dick hadn’t survived, technically speaking. They were both better trained than any officer on the GCPD.

Gordon turned away again, and Batman took his chance to slip off the roof. Above him, he heard the familiar semi-irritated muttering at the vanishing act.

They both had work to do.

Batman swung away from the police station, heading towards the wealthier nightlife areas. The Owls had found several victims in the clubs and lounges there last night, and he had learned early on that establishing and maintaining a presence in the city was vital to his work. The criminals had to know that the Bat was out there, believe he could be watching them, fear him. Owl attacks with impunity undermined him. He couldn’t effectively deal with the Court if he had to deal with an increase of organised crime as well. Or disorganised crime, for that matter.

Having the Batsignal back helped. Robin’s presence on the streets helped. Now Batman himself needed to do his part.

He disrupted a minor drug deal in an alley. The dealer was young, younger than the Red Hood, so Batman didn’t hit him very hard. The mugger three blocks over he wasn’t so kind to - he’d been too late to prevent the victim being injured. As he waited on a fire escape, he overheard a man hitting his girlfriend. Bursting in on them wouldn’t necessarily help her, might even put her in more danger once he’d left, so he made a note of the address for Leslie. She knew more people better prepared to deal with domestic violence than he did.

It was a busy night, but the whole time his mind was back in the Cave.

“Red Robin to Batman,” a voice said in his ear. “Come in, Batman.”

“Here,” Batman said. “Are you on patrol?”

“No, but Robin followed you out. I’m still in the cave working on that project.”

“Whatever you do, try it on our guest first. And try to keep it from Nightwing if you can,” he ordered. Dick didn't need to be bothered with this. More softly, he asked, “Is he still training?”

“He stopped a few minutes ago. I think he noticed that the lethal force alarm was bothering me. He’s back in the cell and reading.”

“Hrm.” That was almost all discouraging news. Slow going with retraining, that was expected. Dick retreating to the cell of his own free will? Every way he turned it was a reminder of how beaten down Dick was.

“I know,” Red Robin agreed.

“Why did you contact me?”

“Just wanted to know if I was clear to do some testing on the Talon.”

“Whatever you need to do.”

“Got it. Watch out for more Owls. And Robin, he looks like he’s well down the warpath. Red Robin out.”

Batman resumed patrolling. Thirty minutes later, as he took another breather following a scuffle, Robin dropped down beside him from some piping.

He glared. “You know you are being followed,” he said.

Batman suppressed the urge to snap at Robin. He’d been hoping his pursuer would try to slip away and report to his superiors. “Yes.”

A human shadow slipped out from behind a cable station, bronze fittings on its black armour gleaming under the streetlights. It held itself tense, ready to spring - but to spring away. It did not look as though it was here to fight.

It spoke in a voice harsh with disuse. Batman would wager that the Court did not care to hear what its weapons had to say for themselves, and required they retain their ability to speak only so that they could threaten. “I come with a message,” the Talon said.

“Spit it out,” Damian demanded, moving threateningly towards the Talon. “Or shall I go over and make you? I warn you, I like my idea better than listening to anything you have to say.”

The goggles made it difficult to tell where the Talon was looking, but the angle of its head suggested it was paying Robin no heed. His mistake.

“You have some things that belong to us,” the Talon said. “William Cobb. Richard Grayson. The Court wants them returned.”

Hearing Dick referred to as a thing made Damian arch like an angry cat. A heavy hand on his shoulder restrained him. For now.

“It’s not going to happen,” Batman said. “Under no circ*mstances.”

“The Court has anticipated your response.” The Talon backflipped to a better perch, barely telegraphing the movement before it was airborne. Nightwing did stunts like that. “We just wanted you to know, Batman, that we take care of our own. The Gray Son is one of our own.”

It slipped away as silently as it had arrived, only the gleam of its armour giving it away.

Chapter 11: Extremism

Chapter Text

Tim did not think much of the new Talon installation currently decorating a wall of the Cave. He’d been in New York when Bruce had caught this Talon for the first time (how had he escaped?), so he had missed the wonderful, relaxing sensation of yellow eyes fixed on his back the whole time he worked.

Not that the frozen Talon blinked. Tim had tested; even his pupils were unresponsive. Tim was starting to seriously consider Dick’s solution to creepy Talon staring and put knives through those eyes.

He settled for a blindfold instead.

After another few hours of reading he leaned back in his chair and rubbed at his own eyes. He was very tired and all things biological were not his strong suit as far as the sciences went. He had a lot of work to do if he wanted to do more to help Bruce reverse this. There was not going to be a quick fix. Dick was going to be stuck in his Talonised state for a while. Possibly months. Tim shied away from thinking years.

Time for a break. He had to keep up with training anyway; no way he was sitting in the Cave being Mr Tech Support while the rest of the family actually got some retribution. If he was feeling generous he’d cut them in on the financial vengeance he’d spent a few minutes contemplating already.

He went to the main part of the Cave, where all the training gear was, and started warming up. Once he was done with that he decided to work with his bo staff.

Punching and kicking things was all well and good, but today he felt like hitting things with a big stick.

That was the other thing about training. It felt good. Staff training in particular was soothing in a way that almost matched traditional meditation.

Halfway through he felt eyes on him again. Tim slipped into a pattern that would allow him to look up without compromising offensive moves -

- and saw yellow eyes in the rigging above him.

Before he realised what he was doing he’d put an extra few feet of space between them and brought his staff up in a defensive position. Then he realised it was Dick, but not fast enough to prevent a look of pure hurt flashing across Dick’s face.

“Sorry,” Tim said, lowering his staff. “I didn’t realise-” it was you “-you were there.”

Dick dropped to the ground, doing only a single flip on his way down. “It’s all right,” he said. “I suppose I look a bit different to how I used to.”

That was something of an understatement. “It’s the lurking above me thing,” Tim lied. “Normally you make a little more noise.”

“I just wanted to watch.” After a second he crooked a smile and added, “but that’s your thing, isn’t it? Little stalker Timmy.”

Tim immediately went beet red. “You remember that?”

“Yes.” Dick looked absurdly proud of himself.

“Why do I feel like you’ll be remembering only the most embarrassing things about me?” Tim muttered.

Once again there was a short pause. Tim didn’t know if it was Dick searching his memory for an appropriate reply, or Dick weighing up whether he could or should voice that reply. A beat too long after Tim expected a response, Dick said, “It’s a big brother’s prerogative. Timmy.”

It was like the Talon was playing at being Dick. It was all the worse because it really was Dick behind those eyes. That was what Tim’s older brother was now. A performance. By a walking corpse.

He didn’t manage eye contact as he asked, “Why were you watching, anyway?”

No answer. Score one for ‘Dick policing his own responses.’

“Were you bored?” Tim asked.

Without a word, Dick nodded, as though boredom was shameful and dangerous.

Tim laughed, and wished it didn’t sound so brittle. “We were expecting you to start going nuts yesterday.” If Dick was himself, he would be driving them all up the wall. He’d be bouncing around and demanding to be let out. Tim would be ready to murder him, no joke. “Look, just…I don’t know, keep training. Don’t feel like you have to stop because it bothers me.” Even if he thought he’d scream if he heard the lethal force alert go off one more time.

“But it bothers you,” Dick said, just to be totally redundant. “Is there anything else I can do?”

Tim hesitated. He shouldn’t let Dick on the computers, not while he hadn’t been cleared. That effectively ruled out Dick helping him with finding a cure at the moment. Nor could he let Dick do maintenance work on the cars, bikes, or weapons. Security. Safety. But Tim wasn’t the only person who needed help. “Maybe…clean the Batmobile? Alfred can always use a hand with the cleaning.”

Oh, that felt gross, asking semi-amnesiac, far too compliant Dick to do menial labour. That felt seriously exploitative. And yet Dick’s face lit up at the prospect of having something useful to do with his time. “Can I really?”

“As long as you don’t drive off in it or something,” Tim said. “I’ll just get Alfred to bring down soap and water.”

When he called Alfred, Alfred said, “An excellent idea, Master Timothy. I shall bring supplies down directly.”

Oddly, the prospect of washing the cars seemed to return Dick closer to his usual self than anything else had so far. When he turned his back, face and hands out of Tim’s view to be just a sweater-clad shape enthusiastically scrubbing the bikes, Tim could almost imagine that nothing had happened, that Dick was just in the final stages of physio after a long benching for injury. He did his best to ignore the glimpses of white, white skin and yellow eyes.

After a while, Dick approached him again. From the side, being careful to make plenty of noise as he came close. He’d listened to Tim earlier, then. “Tim,” he asked, “What happened to Cobb?”

“Cobb?”

“The other - the Talon. The one we brought back here. What did Ba- Bruce do with him?”

“Oh, him,” Tim said. He’d never learned the Talon’s name. “Bruce hooked him up to the freezer.”

Just like that, any progress Dick had made back to normality vanished. His expression shut down completely, his body language tensed and changed. Performance over. Dick Grayson act done. That was a Talon in front of him. Tim tried not to freak out again. “Did he take the knives out of Cobb’s eyes?” Dick asked, voice flat and frightening in how calm it was.

They weren’t out to be deliberately cruel to their captive. “Of course we did.”

Dick spun on his heel, heading towards his equipment bench. Tim had noticed that his Talon knives were there now, though he thought it was Bruce who had put them there. He slung the bandolier over his sweater, a thoroughly bizarre look from a fashion standpoint, but still worrying. Without asking Tim, he headed straight over to the part of the cave - not in view from where they were, nor from the training area, so Dick must remember something about the layout - where the Talon was frozen. Tim followed him, unsure what he was planning to do.

When Dick found the Talon, he stopped, hands climbing to his knives. Tim was struck by how very much alike they looked. “He’s still conscious,” Dick said.

“What?”

Tim looked hard at the Talon. He hadn’t so much as twitched, not the whole time Tim had been there. He hadn’t breathed. He didn’t have a heartbeat, nor pupil reactivity. As far as Tim could tell, the Talon literally could not move a muscle. How could he possibly be conscious?

Without another word, Dick picked out one of his knives, a strangely delicate movement, and just as delicately slid it into the Talon’s right eye. The motion could barely be called a stab, it was so smooth. Blood and vitreous jelly oozed out from under the blindfold. “Now he isn’t,” Dick said.

“What the hell, Dick?” The words exploded from Tim’s mouth. He and Bruce needed the Talon if they were going to cure Dick. Who knew what sort of effect this would have on Talon physiology? They didn’t even have an adequate baseline! “I was -“

And there was no way to say ‘working with him’ that didn’t sound extremely creepy. Unethical. Well, it was definitely unethical, Tim just didn’t care much right now. This was for Dick, and that was a Talon. It wasn’t going to kill him. Tim could feel bad about it later.

Birdlike eyes turned to him, and this time Tim couldn’t look away. “He was conscious,” Dick repeated. He was sinking into that defensive posture, the same one he’d assumed when talking about ‘decommissioning’ when Tim first brought him back. At least, instead of that calm expression as he’d sunk the knife into an eye, he could see defiance writ clear on Dick’s face. “I won’t let you keep him like that either. It’s cruel.”

“Don’t you want to get better?” Tim almost shouted. “Don’t you want us to fix you?”

“Not if that’s the price!” He glared at Tim. “Don’t you understand? He couldn’t move. Not at all. Not anything. But he was awake. He’s been awake ever since Batmantook the knife out. Just - “

“How do you know he’s conscious?” Tim demanded. Really, the Talon should be in some sort of torpor. Like a frozen frog.

“Because they froze me too,” Dick said. “I was awake. That’s how the Court stores Talons. I won’t let you do it, not even to Cobb.”

It wasn’t that he would fight Tim, he realised in a cold burst of knowledge. Dick, even this creepy half-brainwashed version of Dick, wouldn’t raise a hand against Tim unless he absolutely had to. Even now he was in arm’s reach of the Talon and angled towards him with his knife hand, not Tim. What Dick meant was that he would kill Cobb rather than let Tim or Bruce keep him frozen. He wasn’t going to stop with knifing the Talon through the eye, he would do whatever he had to in order to kill Cobb permanently and ‘save’ him from them.

Bruce wouldn’t stand for that, Tim knew. “Look, Dick. I can’t just let him go. Can we just keep him dead for a little while?”

Dick nodded sharply. “As long as you don’t freeze him.”

“That’s fine,” Tim said.

He was lying. The first sign that Cobb’s body was decaying, the knife was coming out of his eye and the Talon was going back into the freezer. He didn’t care what Dick wanted. Tim was going to save him.

—

Usually when Robin patrolled with Batman, Robin patrolled with Batman. Tonight, Damian was making an exception. He slipped away from his father’s side and headed back towards the neighbourhoods where the Red Hood patrolled. He saw no sign of any Talons as he travelled.

How dare the Court issue ultimatums about returning Grayson - Richard. Richard’s association with Damian’s father was longer than his own, Damian could admit that. Not to mention that Father had claimed Richard as his own, another fact Damian was prepared to accept. Richard was theirs. Besides, it was clear from his actions that Richard would prefer to stay with them, rather than the Court.

The Red Hood was not usually a challenge to find. Stealth was not his preferred means of operation. Damian would have just called ahead, but he didn’t pick up reliably unless the message was accompanied by an emergency signal. Much easier to follow the outraged shouts and occasional gunshot.

Today the Red Hood was chasing down some thugs who, from the looks of things, had robbed a convenience store. The helmet prevented Damian from seeing the expression on his face, but if he knew Todd, the only thing Damian was missing was a manic grin.

Too bad to spoil his fun. Father would prefer that Todd not shoot at people.

Damian dropped feet-first onto the lead bandit’s shoulders. It was more than enough to knock the miscreant off balance, but Damian had been trained by the best. He shifted his weight to ensure the man hit the ground. Shoulders first, of course. Robin didn’t kill.

He heard Todd’s groan somewhere over his head, even as he saw the older man start lashing out to take advantage of the distraction Robin had provided. “Anyone ever told you that Nightwing’s a terrible influence?”

“Usually they tell me the opposite,” Damian said. “I have business with you, Hood.”

“You mean you’re not just dropping in on me?”

Todd realised the pun a second too late, and Damian said, “Has anyone ever told you that Nightwing is a terrible influence?”

“Funny, bat-brat,” Todd said. He smashed a gloved fist into the last thief’s mouth. “Help me get these guys tied up.”

Damian obliged him. There weren’t many. “You should be grateful Hood is using his rubber bullets tonight,” Damian informed the thugs. Those of them who were still conscious anyway. Gagged, the men had no response.

“So what’s up?” Todd asked, once they were alone on a nearby rooftop. “Any progress?”

“Of sorts,” Damian said. “I have yet to discuss the case with Nightwing, but I have brought copies of Batman’s notes. I came to inform you that the Owls are sending Talons into the city again.” He handed over a memory stick - they had been on his father’s computers alone, and Damian had not wanted to transfer them to his own machine. Just in case Father or Drake checked, and he wasn’t supposed to have the information.

“Already?” Todd growled. “Those pricks. They can’t stop for forty-eight hours?”

“They went to find Batman. With an ultimatum.”

“Return Grayson or else?”

Grayson, because it was Richard Grayson who had been taken by the Court. Not Nightwing. No need to connect the two, however strange it felt to use his real name in costume. Even if the Court likely knew by now.

“Essentially. Also the other Talon that Nightwing and Red Robin captured.” They had called Richard and the other Talon things. They had called Richard theirs. Damian dared not show his disquiet in front of Todd. Todd would be merciless with his ridicule. Grayson said that he was only being a(n obnoxious older) brother to Damian when he mocked him, nothing more and nothing less, that it was sometimes unkind and unpleasant but never meant to hurt him seriously. Damian tried to believe Grayson when he could, but in such cases it was difficult. The League of Assassins had not believed in such behaviour.

Todd’s voice was flat as he said, “You didn’t mention B had another Talon locked up.”

Damian scowled at him. “He did not inform me, either. If I had not walked in on Pennyworth preparing his confinement, I wouldn’t know.” His father had not included him on any interrogation of the Talon in the first instance. Now, after reading of the man’s relation to Richard, he suspected that his father had seen the resemblance and wanted to hide it from Damian.

There was silence for a few minutes as Todd scrolled through the notes. Damian kept a lookout. No sign of Talons. No sign of anything more subtle than a Talon, either. He was uncomfortably aware that they could be under the surveillance of an Owl and not know it. He hated the villains that pretended to be just any other civilian.

“This is mostly the science,” Todd said at last. “But it looks like B debriefed Grayson on the Owls, at least. He’s got a pretty sizeable list of possible Owls. Not much else here.”

He had spotted the hole in Father’s inquiries of Richard. How could he not? It was gaping. Hardly a question about what Richard had experienced while captive. His interrogation had been as impersonal as if Nightwing had been surveilling the workings of the Court from a rooftop. It was still useful, in some respects. Important respects. However, Nightwing should possess far better information about the Talons than the Owls. Their numbers. Their capabilities. Their training. He should know those intimately.

Damian’s father had not asked anything about the matter. It wasn’t hard to reason out why.

“Are you done?” Damian asked harshly, uncomfortable with this evidence of his father’s weakness. “We still have a few hours to investigate.”

He didn’t even look up from the notes. “All right, all right. I want to get them as bad as you do, Angry Bird. Believe me.”

“I’m sure that’s why you stormed out in a jealous rage last night,” Damian sneered.

That hit a mark. He couldn’t see Todd’s face, of course, but his shoulders tensed up in a dead giveaway. “f*ck you, brat. That’s got nothing to do with this.”

“Really,” Damian drawled. He shouldn’t. He knew he shouldn’t. If Grayson were present - if even his father were present - he would have just earned himself a sharp rebuke for needlessly antagonising Todd, and using the incidents shortly after he returned to life to do so. But Grayson wasn’t there, Damian thought. Neither was his father. He’d say what he liked to Todd. “You were planning to kill any Owls we found anyway. For the same reasons.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I’m pissed with them. Making sure the Court gets what’s coming to it for what they did to Nightwing and being pissed at your dad ’cause he’s a giant hypocrite are two different things.”

He did not deny the jealousy, Damian noticed. If he had, everyone would have known it was a lie.

Either way, they were wasting time up here when they could be tracking down whatever Owl had wasted organisational resources to murder Jacob Alvarez. A foolish risk on their part, and one for which Robin intended to make them and all their co-conspirators pay. The Red Hood’s assistance was welcome but not necessary in the endeavour.

“Very well,” Damian said. “Are we going to go or not? I have perhaps an hour before Batman notices my absence.”

More than anything he wished to be done with the tedious detective work already. It was important; his father and Grayson alike had impressed upon him the importance of evidence collection in their mission. They could only smash heads, as Todd so termed it, if they were certain which heads ought to be smashed. If they missed Court members, they would retreat and re-establish, like the parasites they were.

Damian definitely wanted blood. Then he wanted unmarked graves. Richard and Father were not the partners he wanted for this. Todd might be. Nor could he forget the Court’s threat to reclaim Richard. They had no right. And this time, Damian wasn’t going to let them take his brother from him.

Chapter 12: Responsibility

Chapter Text

Watching the littlest Bat try to question people was hilarious.

He started off pretty well. Nightwing had trained him to make use of his small size and chubby cheeks when interviewing non-hostile civilians, acting friendly and adorable to put them at their ease. (It sure hadn’t been Bruce who taught him that.) That in itself was laughable, but what made it really funny was the way he couldn’t keep it up. Alvarez’ colleague, one of the ones who’d witnessed him get stabbed, had got stalled in their recount of the event at the point where he’d received an award for excellent performance in surgery or something at the awards dinner the murder had occurred at. That was totally more important than seeing a super-not-exactly-a-zombie stab a co-worker to death. What a douchebag.

And he knew Damian agreed, because that civilian-friendly expression was starting to crack around the edges. “Please, sir, could you describe the attacker in as much detail as you remember?”

Damian extracted only a description of the usual black-armoured figure with bronze trimmings and lots of shiny, shiny knives. Nobody had managed to get a hit on the assailant, of course, so they didn’t have any testimony of mysteriously healing wounds that would be the absolute 100% proof that it had been a Talon.

As it was the black-and-bronze with goggles made it about 95% it had been a Talon. (It was Gotham, after all. They couldn't be certain.)

“Is there any reason anyone might want to kill him?” Damian asked, just barely not grinding his teeth.

The prize-winning doctor blinked at them stupidly. “There was a malpractice suit,” he said slowly. “It just got thrown out.”

Jason had found that, and had cross-references going on his computer back home. He signalled to Robin to keep going. Preferably for something they couldn’t find out with court records.

A few more questions, and Dr Douchebag said, “I think he had something going with Maddie - one of the nurses, you know?”

“Thank you for your time,” Damian said. He sounded sweet as pie, but his hand was twitching towards the batarangs. Jason was practically shaking with suppressed laughter, hoping that their mark would interpret it as barely-restrained violence. He couldn’t wait to tell the Replacement about this. Even Dick might get a laugh - wait.

Well, why shouldn’t he still find Robin’s terrible interviewing skills funny?

Once they were clear, Damian said, “Father will be missing me.” He looked back at the witness, then back at the skyline. He’d been doing that all night. Looking for Talons, no doubt.

Jason knew the kid wanted to stay out, but sh*t, one of them had to be responsible, right? Damian’s preferred big brother/mother hen was out of commission, so someone had to do it. Wasn’t going to be Bruce, and it definitely wasn’t going to be the Replacement. “You better get back to him,” Jason said. “I’ll keep investigating.”

“Don’t you dare fight any Owls without me, Todd,” Damian said. “I demand to be included.”

“Right back at you, Robin.” If anyone had cause to worry about being left out of the vengeance party, it was him. Too bad. Jason had no intention of being excluded. He’d been a Robin, Dickface had been a Robin - nobody messed with Robins. It set a bad precedent. Jason was totally entitled to get his pitchfork out for the occasion. Like he’d told Damian, it was different to his issues with Bruce. Bruce was Bruce, and Bruce was an asshole. But hypothetically, if something or someone started messing with, say, the Replacement…or, okay, even Damian himself, Jason wasn’t going to let that pass.

All in all, Jason was just as determined as the brat to kick some feathery, corrupt Owl tail. Unlike some people, he was down with some violent revenge.

That was what was on his mind as he tracked down Maddie who was one of the nurses. Her name was Madison Blanchard, in fact. She’d worked in the hospital for a grand total of six months, and she was only a few years older than he was.

Maybe he shouldn’t have teased Robin. Still he was glad the brat wasn’t here to see his efforts at interrogation. Jason stopped by a safehouse, changed his hair and put on a more appropriate shirt, and hit the bar the surgeons and surgical nurses went to after shift.

It took two hours of drinks and flirting, but Jason discovered that Maddie Blanchard was very much not lacking for romantic attention in the workplace - it was just that Alvarez was the one whose attentions she’d chosen to reciprocate. Most guys were gracious enough to let that sort of thing go. Some weren’t. The name that kept coming up was Dr Isaac Bedford. Jason kissed the nurse who’d confided in him on the cheek and returned to his primary safehouse to run the checks that could be done via computer - and sleep. Alfred was probably running himself ragged just convincing the others to take proper care of themselves. Jason didn’t need to add to that burden.

Maybe it was a little hard to sleep. Not that he was tossing and turning over what had happened to Dick of all people, but that didn’t mean it sat right with him.

Maybe stupid Dick shouldn’t get kidnapped then. He should know how much it worried everyone else by now.

When he woke up, his computer had spat out a list of possible matches with other signs of Owl activity. The good Dr Bedford, it seemed, was likely to be their first Owl in what they would make sure was a haul of all of them.

They really needed to talk to Dick, Jason thought, as he manually entered a few more potential identifiers into the referencing program. Once they found the Owls, they’d need to know about their defences - and their defenders. There was nobody who’d know better than him.

Bruce wasn’t going to debrief Dick properly. That was clear from the piss-poor effort Damian had called a report. Replacement might do it. He’d have to check. What was certain now was that they shouldn’t ask Damian to do it. If Bruce did, Jason might have to punch him in the face twice, and the first time it wouldn’t be because of his own issues.

He was going to have to go over there. Talk to Dick himself, or at least to the Replacement. Get the information Bruce couldn’t bring himself to get.

Jason regretted asking Damian to speak to Dick the first time. The kid was clearly having a hard time with this, and if Bats had let him sneak away, nobody was really looking out for him either. He doubted anyone but Alfred was keeping an eye on Tim either.

Someone had to be the responsible one here.

—

Sneaking into Wayne Manor was one of those things easier said than done. Bruce had so much money that nobody questioned him having security and lots of it; there were national security agencies that would find Bruce’s safeguards surprising if they probed the depths of them. All of them let Jason through without a beep of complaint.

That hadn’t been the case last time Jason dropped by. The Batcave and the measures before it were usually programmed to give token resistance, just so someone knew he’d been in and out.

The familiar bitterness came back. He wasn’t worth letting in like a member of the family except when Dick was hurt and the big man needed him to babysit the little ones. Whatever. Like he’d told B, it wasn’t a surprise to him. The sky was blue, grass was green, and everyone loved Dick best. He’d mostly stopped minding, but never entirely.

“Replacement,” he greeted Tim as he made it through the final door.

In the light of his computer monitors, Tim looked shabby. Exactly the sort of sleep-deprived he’d expected, with lines of tension in his forehead that spoke of a serious headache, metaphorical or otherwise. It was hard to tell, since the Replacement had a good poker face, but Jason thought he detected a trace of guilt on his features.

“Jason,” Tim said. He glanced away from his computer to do so, but not anything more than a glance. That would be an ineffecient expenditure of energy. Or something. “What are you doing here?”

“What I told Bruce I’d do,” he said. “Smash some heads. There’s this pesky intermediate step I need to do first so’s I can find the right heads. I’m not the best detective in the family, but I can still do the job. I need Dick’s take on everything after Bruce screwed up interviewing him the first time.”

Normally, the Replacement would leap to defend Bruce from Jason. Jason had said it so that he would. But Tim ignored the bait.

“Anyway, what have you been up to?” he asked, when Tim didn’t say anything. “Anything interesting?”

“A lot of catch-up, background sort of study,” Tim said absently. “A bunch of baseline testing too. Right now I can understand Bruce’s notes, but I can’t contribute meaningfully. It’s only going to get more complex from here. He’s going to need the help.”

It wasn’t clear who he was in that sentence, Bruce or Dick, but Jason suspected it didn’t matter. Either one of them could use some assistance. “So no timeframe, I take it.”

Tim snorted. “Months, at least, even if you find the Owls tomorrow and a detailed explanation of every step involved in making a Talon. Unless you also find a detailed explanation of how to reverse the process and it can be accomplished in less than two months. And all that assumes that the Court stuck to science, and didn’t involve any magic in this.” He turned to Jason again, face grim. “You could be biologically the oldest brother by the time we fix this.”

That…that was…that just sounded plain wrong to him. He still wouldn’t be the oldest, but even so… “I swear to god you better fix this before that happens.”

“Working on it.”

“Anyway. Where is he?”

“Dick? He’s back in the cell.”

“Why? Surely if he was going to flip out and try and kill everyone here, he’d’ve done it by now. Like, the first time you let him out of your sight.”

“He flipped out,” Tim said flatly. “Not violently, not to me anyway, but you know the Talon Bruce froze for study? He stabbed it through the eye.”

“Him,” Jason growled. “Stabbed him.”

“Fine. Him. That’s worse, if anything, because you know Dick wouldn’t have killed a person in cold blood before all this.”

Lost his temper and hit someone just that bit too hard, perhaps. Really lost his temper and killed someone in the heat of the moment, a more remote possibility but still there. Deliberately set out to kill someone, no. Not Dick. And that was not a thing that could be said about all of them. “At least the guy won’t stay dead,” Jason said.

Tim shook his head. “Not this time, but he strongly implied that if I took the knife out and froze it - him, the Talon, again, Dick would kill him permanently. He was pretty firm in his arguments that being frozen was worse than death.”

“Then just let him stay dead-ish. Can’t hurt him, right?”

“It can hurt the tests Bruce wants done,” Tim said. “I’m leaving him dead for now, but I still had to ask Dick to go back to the cell.”

“And he just went?” No whining about being cooped up? It was a minor miracle, if that was the case. Jason looked to the monitoring screen. Sure enough, there was Dick. He was pacing back and forth in the limited room, ignoring the TV but occasionally glancing up at the camera, utterly blank expression on his face. At a guess Jason would say he was very, very bored. “Can you let him out again? I don’t want to do this through a window.”

“Just don’t let him mess with any of my tests. I don’t want to have to start over.”

“Yeah, okay. I want him fixed up too.”

Jason made his way to the cell again. f*ck, but he had hated being trapped in that thing, back when he’d been Robin. The longest he’d ever stayed in had been a full day and that had been bad enough. Clearly Tim and Bruce had let Dick out for a few hours here and there, but Jason would bet he’d been confined to the Cave. They probably hadn’t worked out a way for him to go out in public yet.

Once again he didn’t manage to surprise Dick with his approach. Not that he’d been particularly trying. “Hey,” he said, trying for casual.

“Hey,” Dick replied, and visibly struggled to smile.

“Wanna spar?” Jason asked.

He did. A look of pure want flashed across Dick’s face, before being submerged in impassiveness. That had to be a Court thing, since it definitely wasn't a normal Dick thing. “Bruce doesn’t want me to,” he said.

“Like that matters to you more than seven times out of ten.” And the most frustrating seven times, too.

Dick shrugged uncomfortably, eyes downcast. “I don’t think I should. I’ve been practicing, and I keep setting off the lethal force alerts. I don’t want to kill you by accident.”

As if you could, Jason wanted to scoff. It didn’t sound like something that was meant to be taken lightly. Nor could Jason actually take that lightly. Any sparring match had risks. Roy had nearly broken Jason’s arm once, from a hold that went ever so slightly wrong. If Dick was fighting whatever had been programmed into him for the past month while also fighting Jason, a match was automatically that much likelier to go awry. Since he doubted the Court had been training Dick to use gentle non-lethal takedowns, that could get very dangerous indeed. “It’s up to you,” he said.

The want flitted back over Dick’s face. “Later?”

Agreeing would essentially mean promising to come back. Coming back meant risking running into Bruce again. He wasn’t keen on that. “Sure,” he said.

Dick smiled, and it even looked real. It was enough to make him almost feel sorry for saying, “I need to ask you a few questions, though.”

Sure enough, the smile vanished, leaving the impassive Talon there instead. “If you want,” he said.

Jason opened the cell door. “Come on, we can do a bit of target practice while we talk.” That seemed like a decent compromise. Dick kept pace with him as they went to the practice area. “You seem to know where we’re going again.”

“Things are coming back to me a bit,” Dick said. “Besides, I’ve been trying to practice with the batarangs already.”

They did that, for a few minutes, before Jason said, “So, the Talons.”

A batarang thunked into the shoulder of the mannequin target, raising a shrill squeal as one of its “arteries” was injured. “What do you want to know about them?”

“Numbers, habits, vulnerabilities, equipment, training, layout of the facilities, everything you know about them. You know the drill.”

“Why are you asking?”

“‘Cause Bruce isn’t going to,” Jason snapped. “He’d rather let me or Tim or maybe even Damian ask you, then torture himself with how badly he failed you.” Then he’d probably put up a glass case with a Nightwing suit inside, right next to the Robin one. He wondered what Bruce would put on that plaque.

“Not that,” Dick said. “What are you planning to do?”

“Destroy the Court. What else?”

Dick set his batarang down with a clink, and turned yellow bird eyes on him. Jason had been trying not to notice that. Or the visible veins around his eyes and at his neck. When he looked at Dick he expected to see brown skin and a smile. Tim said it would almost certainly be months at least until Dick was fixed. By then Jason might be used to Dick’s new look. Or not. “I want to help,” Dick said, quietly but firmly.

Bruce wouldn’t like it. Bruce would want Dick to stay quietly at home and not do anything that might be dangerous to himself or to others. Be a good little corpse, Dick, and stay in your grave.

“I think I can arrange that,” Jason said. Within reason. Much as he hated to admit it, Bruce might have half a point.

—

It was getting on three days after the Court of Owls had attacked, and Batgirl had yet to hear from Batman.

She knew he wasn’t dead; he’d been on the roof of the GCPD last night, talking to her father. She knew Robin was fine; she’d spotted him from a distance. She figured that if Red Robin or even the Red Hood had been killed, someone would have told her. Black Bat was still sending her reports on schedule, no hint of trouble there.

Nightwing was still missing.

Like all of the rest of them, she’d been out looking. She’d been out first - not that it was a competition. They all just wanted him to be safe, though every passing day made it less likely. Barbara had no intention of giving up. Dick wouldn’t give up. Not until he died. She couldn’t do any less.

It was just that life, and business, had to go on. Gotham didn’t stop needing protection because Dick Grayson went missing. She’d been blindsided by the Owls, assuming they were Batman’s case and not wanting to interfere. Now, if the Court of Owls was not just a nursery rhyme and did in fact have Talons they could send for heads, she wanted to know more about them.

Not to mention, they usually met after a night like they’d just had, just to touch base. They worked semi-independently, not totally divorced from each other. Batgirl wasn’t just backup for Batman in a crisis.

The best way to do this, Batgirl decided, was to go to the Cave directly. He couldn’t run off on her if she went there, or put her off, or ignore her calls. The trip would take most of the night and cut into patrolling, but not getting proper information could get her killed.

She let herself in. Batman had given her passcodes, ones that let him know when she’d visited. It wasn’t her home, after all. When she pulled in, there was nobody there. Not Batman, not Red Robin, not Alfred. Strange. It was almost patrol time.

There was nobody at the computer, either. Barbara went deeper, to the practice area. There at last were people, two of them, talking quietly. She privately cursed the fact that all the boys had black hair. It made them damnably hard to tell apart from a distance sometimes.

But that - that was Jason, yet the dark-haired man next to him was too small to be Bruce, and too big to be Tim, let alone Damian.

Barbara hurried towards them. If that was who she thought that was - she knew those shoulders, that stance. That...backside. Not that she'd looked. Often. That would be rude.

- and they hadn’t told her -

Why hadn’t they told her?! She was going to have to shout atsomeone for this, and she knew exactly who to blame.

He looked a bit peaky under the Batcave’s bright lights, but that was definitely Dick. They’d found him. After more than a month of looking, they’d actually found him! Barbara’s heart beat fast in her chest. She couldn’t believe it. Her steps quickened, and he must have heard her, because he turned around -

- and fixed her with golden, unrecognising eyes.

Chapter 13: High and Low

Chapter Text

Pretty red hair. Strong shoulders and clever fingers. Dick knew this woman, even though she was wearing a cowl. He had wondered if Barbara would visit him, even not truly knowing who Barbara was.

She stopped dead when she saw his eyes, her own narrowing under the open gaps in her cowl. “Dick?” she asked.

Dick nodded.

Behind him, he heard Jason slink off, trying to be quiet, as Babs took a step towards him. “What happened?” she asked. “Was it the Owls?”

His voice caught in his throat at the gentleness in her voice and the concern in her eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “They got me. Sorry. Nobody told you?”

Blue eyes hardened. “No.”

Damn it, Bruce. He knew Batgirl could be trusted. Babs deserved better than to be left in the cold like that. She’d earned her place, more than earned her place, and she should be kept in the loop as a matter of course. Honestly, Dick thought he’d told that Bruce a few times. At least. “I’ll give him a piece of my mind,” Dick said.

“I’ll do it myself,” Babs told him. “Never mind Bruce, what happened?” Her bright blue eyes held no fear as she looked at him, only compassion.

“I -“ he started, but he voice stopped up in his throat. He’d never said it aloud before, not like this. I am a Talon. He’d thought it to himself. He’d never said it. Now, he realised, he was afraid to. Saying it would make it somehow realer, and it was plenty real enough already. He wasn’t Talon, he just…was a Talon. “They,” he tried again, because it was easier, “They made me a Talon.”

She reached out for him anyway. Dick let her take his hand, her black-gloved fingers tracing along the darkened veins near his wrist. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I take it Bruce is working on a cure.”

“Yeah. Tim too, I think.” Her hand felt nice on his. He’d ruffled Damian’s hair earlier, but he hadn’t been touched like this since…since…no, he couldn’t remember. Which reminded him. “Um. Babs. I - I suppressed a bunch of memories while I was away. I don’t, I mean, I can’t…”

He felt her hand tighten a little, though not painfully. Her expression didn’t change at least, not like Damian or Jason. Or even Tim. “That’s all right,” she said. “I won’t tell you anything, since I know it’s important for you to remember on your own, but I’m just glad you’re back.”

Alfred had said as much, not quite like that, but that was what he’d meant. Other than that, all he’d done was make people upset and angry and suspiciously stone-faced. But Babs, Babs was only happy he was back. There was now a warm feeling in his chest, and he could feel himself smile naturally. He didn’t know what it looked like - although there were showers down here, and mirrors, Dick was still avoiding looking at his own face and body - but it made Babs blink a few times before looking away.

It didn’t look like the bad sort of blinking and turning away.

“I hope I didn’t worry you too badly,” Dick said.

“Oh, you did, Boy Wonder. You did.” She lightly punched him in the shoulder with her free hand. “I looked for you. And all that time -“

“I was infiltrating the secret society of birdbrains,” Dick said lightly. It felt right, and he revelled in it. Even if this didn’t last, he had it now. He was the only person who could take this memory from him. “Method acting and all.”

Babs smiled. “Well, if it’s method acting, I suppose I can forgive you.” She squeezed his hand again. “I have to talk to Bruce and then patrol, but I’ll be back to see you. I promise.”

“I’m not going anywhere right now.”

But he would soon enough. Jason had promised that if he could get himself out of the Cave, he was welcome to help him and Damian track down the rest of the Owls, the ones who had scattered after they had been defeated. They probably had a new headquarters by now. As far as Dick knew, his family had mostly neutralised the Talons, rather than their masters.

There would still be Talons left.

He watched Babs leave, beautiful hair swinging slightly as she left. Best part of his week, with only that short moment with Damian in competition.

“Close your mouth, Dick,” Jason said, slinking back from wherever it was he’d vanished to during his brief conversation with Babs. “You’re drooling.”

“Am not.”

Jason snickered. “Glad to see that’s back to normal. Ish. God, you two can be unbearable.”

“Oh, like you’ve never done the same,” Dick retorted without thinking. A heartbeat later, he realised what he’d said and why he’d said it - he remembered, properly remembered, Jason meeting Donna for the first time. His crush on her had been adorable. Smiling had never felt easier.

—

It did not escape Bruce just how awful Tim looked. There were dark bags underneath his eyes, which were bloodshot. Bruce doubted that he himself looked any better. “Progress?” he asked.

“Still catching up,” Tim said. “I ran a few more of the tests you wanted done on the Talon, before there was an incident.”

“What do you mean by ‘incident’?” He was already moving towards the relevant workstation, but the issue became apparent very quickly. The cooling system had been turned off, and instead, there was a knife thrust through one of the Talon’s eyes. A Talon knife. “Dick did this?”

“Yes.”

Bruce studied the dead body in front of him. The knife had been placed well, causing minimal trauma to the eyeball itself. A steady, expert hand had inflicted that wound. He inspected the blade, noting how deeply it had been sunk into the brain. In a normal case he would see wounds of that depth as an indication of personal feeling in the crime. “Why?”

“He said the Talon was fully conscious.”

“Hmm.” He had known they had to have some awareness while frozen, else the Talon could not have reported the location of the cave back to the Court. He had thought it was intermittent, possibly a dream state. He had not known it was full consciousness. He did not like the idea nor its implications. It was almost certainly the decommissioning of which Dick had spoken, and which he so obviously feared. Just as Bruce could and would not test the Talon to destruction, he could not inflict imprisonment so total on it either. “Prioritise brainwave scans while the Talon is frozen,” he said. “Keep it dead as long as possible. I don't want it frozen for more than half an hour at a time, and never without a clear need."

Tim typed in a few more notes, presumably including the brainwave scan order. “Dick won’t like it.”

“Dick will have to live with it.” It was imperative they found some sort of cure for his condition.

The Gray Son is one of our own. When Bruce had tried to sleep, the words kept whispering in his mind. It wasn’t true, of course it wasn’t true. After a month of torture and brainwashing to convince him, Dick had still left the Court at the first opportunity. The Court was deluded, but their delusions still posed a threat. He could not and should not go back onto the streets yet, not as Nightwing, nor even as Dick Grayson.

Even letting him back into the house proper was a risk. People came through there, including the cleaning staff Alfred hired for the rooms not in regular use, and the groundskeepers.

At the same time, he couldn’t just keep Dick in the cave. That was unfair and cruel, especially when he’d shown no signs of any sleeper programming, as Bruce had initially feared.

He would let Dick back into the house itself. Alfred had been hard at work repairing the defences, and Bruce himself had spent some time planning improvements. The Court should not be able to get to him, even if they could reason out where he was. They probably already knew that.

“If he finds out, he’ll kill the Talon permanently to stop us freezing it,” Tim said flatly. “Or that was the impression he left me with.”

Even if Talons were dead already, it was a disturbing piece of information, and further evidence that Dick shouldn’t be Nightwing again yet. “Then he doesn’t need to know. Keep him out of the lab.”

Tim snorted. “I’ll do my best.”

“Succeed,” Bruce said.

An alert beeped at him, and he saw Batgirl was on the premises. He frowned at it; he hadn’t kept her informed. That was remiss of him. He ought to apologise.

She forestalled that, since she was waiting for him as soon as he stepped out of the lab. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she hissed. “Did you think I wouldn’t care about this?”

“No,” he said steadily. “My focus was on Dick.”

“A group of whack jobs tried to take over Gotham, nearly killed my dad, kidnapped Dick and did - things to him, and you don’t even call me to tell me what happend and why?”

“Yes. I apologise. I should have contacted you.”

Bruce knew he didn’t apologise often, but the look of shock on Barbara’s face at his words caused a twinge of shame. He kept his face impassive. The concerns that had him deprioritise communicating with Barbara, the Court and Dick’s condition, were still his primary concerns.

“Good,” she said. “Don’t do it again. Dick’s probably going to yell at you himself, by the way.”

“I’d be glad to hear it,” Bruce said, absolutely sincere. Dick arguing with him and asserting himself could only be a good sign.

The words made Barbara sober. “How bad is it?” she asked. “I saw the…physical changes…and he said he repressed some memories, but how bad is it really? Was he captured the whole time? The mental effects of that alone -“

“We haven’t put Dick through the full battery of tests yet. We have a Talon down here for comparison purposes, and he seems to possess a number of significant differences from a base human and is, biologically, not a living being. So far Dick’s condition would seem to be the same as the Talon’s.” Even that was hard for him to say. Dick was dead. Not gone, but transformed. “As for mental effects, we haven’t questioned him on his experiences either, but what he’s said leads me to believe he was tortured in several different ways, including but not limited to pain, mutilation, and sensory deprivation. They know his civilian identity, as they do mine, and probably Tim’s and Damian’s. Resuming his civilian identity will be dangerous.”

He was determined that Dick would reclaim a civilian identity, at least. Even if he could not be Dick Grayson again, Bruce would spare no expense in ensuring Dick could live a life he wanted. Should worst come to worst, Bruce would have to ensure Dick could live several civilian lives over.

Here and now, though, Barbara’s eyes were wide from the summary of Dick’s injuries. “They’ll probably be able to connect the dots to Jason and me. I’ll shore up our cybersecurity. Yours too, if you’ll let me.”

“Naturally. Thank you.”

“We’re in this together,” Barbara said. There was a sharp reminder in her voice. Deservedly so. “Is there anything in particular you need me to do about the Court?”

“Track them down,” he said. “Keep an eye on Damian and Jason for me.” He wanted the Court destroyed for what they had done. He wanted them all dead as badly as he had ever wanted the Joker dead for what he did to Jason. But he would not have any more blood on either Jason’s or Damian’s hands. Dick wouldn’t have wanted it either. Barbara would be able to keep a handle on them both.

Barbara nodded, eyes gleaming. “Definitely.”

Everything said between them that needed to be said, Batgirl departed for patrol. Bruce sent up a few requests for Alfred, and then headed to the lab. Tim wasn’t the only one working on that cure.

—

“I hate to bring the mood back down, but I really do need to ask you about the Talon stuff,” Jason said.

Dick felt his smile fall away. “Okay,” he said. He didn’t want to. He’d just been happy.

Jason reached inside his jacket - he wouldn’t bring his gun in here, would he? - he took out a tiny recording device, like a reporter might. Dick knew Jason had one in his helmet too, but he always did like his redundancies. He, Bruce, and Tim all had that in common. He clicked it on, and said, “Right, start at the beginning. When did they nab you and how?”

“I don’t know,” Dick said. “First thing I remember properly, I woke up in the labyrinth.” He closed his eyes and strained to recall. He thought…a small room. Wine. Someone sitting next to him, very close. Someone… “No, I don’t know how they got me. They never said.”

“And then the same labyrinth as they chucked Bruce in, right?”

“Same labyrinth,” Dick said. It was the heart of the Court in many ways. They would abandon it at need, as they would anything they believed to be weakening them, but they would not build another unless they were certain they could not reclaim it.

“Drugs, no food, sleep deprivation?”

“Drugs and sleep deprivation,” he confirmed. “Cobb found me in the labyrinth sometimes and gave me food if I inflicted a mortal wound on him. They spoke to me, told me what I - that I was their Talon.”

“Creepy,” Jason observed, “And not what happened to Batman. So they kept you there to soften you up, and then…”

“They took me somewhere else. A small room. There were people in Owl masks there. They…”

He trailed off, clouded memories rising from the bottom of his mind, threatening to overwhelm him. He didn’t want those memories. He didn’t want to remember the fear as his heart beat harder and harder and harder only to seize painfully in his chest, or the helplessness as he thrashed to escape the agony without success. No. Everything about the physical process of becoming a Talon could stay buried as far as he could keep it.

But Jason was still watching him, scowling, waiting for an answer. “They strapped me down and injected me with something,” Dick said. “When I woke up, I was…like this.”

Something between pity, envy, and understanding flashed across Jason’s face.

“I didn’t know what had happened. I could barely think. I just knew that it was bad.” He focused on Jason harder, and, not knowing exactly why, he asked, “Was it like that for you when you woke up?”

At that, Jason’s face went as blank as stone. “I wasn’t thinking anything when I woke up, Dick. Unlike you, I was pretty much an actual zombie, until Talia chucked me in that Lazarus Pit.”

“But after that,” Dick persisted. Now he could remember. How had he ever forgotten? Jason had died. The Joker had beaten him with a crowbar and left him, broken and bloodied, in a warehouse with a bomb. Dick had been away for all of it, Jason’s death, Jason’s funeral. He hadn’t known when Jason climbed out of his own grave. “Was it like that when you got out of the Pit?”

Jason said, very quietly, “A little.”

“I’m sorry.” He hadn’t said that to Jason before. Not about this. “If I could have been there for you…”

“Yeah. Yeah, me too.” They sat in silence for a little while, and then Jason asked, “What next?”

“Training,” Dick said.

“Gonna need details on that, Dickie. Know thy enemy.”

He stiffened, then forced himself to relax. This was necessary. He knew it was necessary. They needed to know what they were up against. “They started by killing me until I was used to it,” he said. He described what he could, while Jason listened blank-faced. It was unpleasant for Talon to recall, but if it meant his brothers would be prepared, it was worth it. They could not afford to waste time believing a catastrophic injury would distress a Talon.

After that Talon explained the combat techniques the Court had trained him for - bladework, mostly. While they knew the advantages of firearms, they also believed them too impersonal.

The Court liked blood.

And then Jason asked the question Talon had been fearing. “What about missions? They send you on any? You know how they worked, how they picked targets, anything like that?”

He had to tell him. He had to tell him. But before he could find the words, his silence spoke for him.

“You did,” Jason said, incredulous. “You actually - you killed for them?”

Talon retreated further into monotone, taking comfort in his too-steady heartbeat. “They did not trust me above the ground until the night they sent me to kill the mayor. When they told me to kill, they brought the targets to the labyrinth and instructed me to hunt them down.”

“And you did it?”

This time, the words came out before he could stop them. They felt natural. True. “I am Talon. I did what I was ordered.”

Oh god. That was why he’d been scared to say the words. It felt right. Like Dick was an act and he’d just let it go, revealing what the Court had made him. Like Talon was not just real, but more real than Dick. He didn’t want it to be true.

It isn’t. An hour ago Talon felt like a dream. Dick is real, and I was Dick first.

It was just hard to remember while Jason stared at him in disbelief. It wasn’t so different to how Tim had been looking at him. Was it really so hard to believe that Tal - Dick had killed someone? But Jason, being Jason, quickly got angry rather than show any other emotion. “What the f*ck, Dick? Why?”

Because they had told him to. Because he was afraid of them. “They would have frozen me if I didn’t,” he said. “I will not let anyone freeze me. Not again.”

“So you’d rather kill whatever random person the Court threw in front of you?”

“Yes,” Talon hissed. There were many, many things he would rather do than suffer through the coffin again, even for an hour. Killing was one of them.

Jason narrowed his eyes. “That’s exactly what they want you to do. I didn’t figure you for a lackey, Talon.”

“You never rushed back to your coffin…Robin.”

He stood and paced, hoping the movement would shake the Talon mindset free. Being Dick was better. Dick was real, Talon was temporary. He just had to keep pretending to be Dick again, and then he really would be Dick. That was how he had become Talon in his head, so it should work in reverse too. He had to concentrate.

His insides started burning with guilt. That was a good sign, Dick told himself. He ought to feel guilty. He’d killed people. And he’d just rubbed Jason’s death in his face. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he said. “I’m sorry, Jason.”

“You all right, then?” Jason glared at him. “If I didn’t think you were messed up in the head I’d kick your ass for that.”

“I’m sorry,” Dick repeated.

“S’ only a bit your fault,” Jason said. “You can pay me back by telling me everything, and then we can both go kill some Owls.”

Revenge was something Jason knew and lived. Dick didn’t know it quite so well. When his parents had been murdered, he’d felt that desire, but it had burned itself out not long after he became Robin. (He’d been Robin, the first Robin, it was the name his mother called him. The memory ached as much as the guilt did.) When Jason had been murdered, he’d felt it, and once again it had faded with time.

Now? He didn’t want revenge for what had been done to him. He couldn’t find it in him to care if Jason slaughtered the whole Court. (Damian, though, Damian was too young, and he worked so hard to follow Bruce’s path rather than his mother’s.) What Dick wanted, he thought, was with the Talons.

Chapter 14: Disguise

Chapter Text

The first item on Jason’s agenda following that little chat was deleting the recording from the Cave’s surveillance. If Bruce saw that, not only would he torture himself with it, but he would work extra hard to keep Nightwing off the streets. Jesus, the Owls had done a number on Dick. He’d never seen the first Robin, the golden boy, Bruce’s favourite, perfect son, so messed up in the head.

It was nowhere near as satisfying as he’d once thought it would be.

Dick had recounted a list of abuses that would make the Joker clap his hands in insane glee. Only the Joker didn’t do things like that to train people. And the longer Dick spoke, the more his mannerisms changed. His words had dropped emotionless into the air. The movement of his hands and eyes stilled. The corners of his mouth set a bit harder. Small things, but by the end it was like talking to a stranger. Who just happened to have a face a lot like Dick’s.

In spite of the jab about his experience digging out of his own grave (he was going to kick Dick’s ass for that, as soon as the other man had his head on straight), he had almost been relieved when it happened. He’d started behaving like, well, like Dick at that point.

Then there was his flat admission that he would kill to avoid being frozen, whatever being frozen entailed. Tim had said something about Bruce freezing a Talon - if it was what it sounded like, Jason wasn’t sure he wouldn’t kill to avoid that fate.

With any luck Babs would still be close by. She would be the best person to ask to wipe the tapes. Replacement would freak out and tell Bruce, not necessarily in that order, if Jason asked him to do it. Babs would want to know, but she’d probably keep a secret from Bruce if she thought there was a good reason for it.

Not having Bruce at Dick’s throat while he was trying to recover sounded like a good reason.

He had to pass the lab on the way back out. Bruce was in there. So was Tim. He stuck his head in briefly to see what was going on, but neither of them paid him any mind. There was science going on. Possibly the sort of science that would cure Dick. It was well and truly patrol time, and neither of them were out there.

Fine, then. More space for him to do what he needed to do.

He tracked down Batgirl on her usual patrol route. He snuck up behind her on a nondescript rooftop (the classic Bat-to-Gordon technique) and opened with, “I need a favour.”

Unlike her father, Babs didn’t jump. She’d probably known when he got within ten feet, or she was no sort of Bat at all. “What is it, Hood?” She didn’t even turn around to face him. It was a nice little gesture of trust.

“Need some of the tapes from the Cave wiped.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause ‘Wing confessed quite a bit to me and it’ll send Bats into a tailspin if he hears. Probably Red Robin too, maybe even the brat.”

She turned around then, lenses of her cowl up to show her eyes. “And you’re trusting me to keep my head together?”

“You managed it a few hours ago. Better than any of us did.”

“He’s still Dick,” she said, as if that explained everything.

“Yeah, about that,” Jason said. “You caught him at a good time. That’s about as Dick Grayson as he’s been since he got back, from what I gather. When I was asking him about the Court he wasn’t nearly so chill. Much more brainwashed-assassin-y.”

Barbara frowned, then her eyes widened. “He killed -“

“As ordered. He didn’t say how many.” Jason killed people, but they were bad people. Rapists and paedophiles, dealers who sold to children, the occasional murderer. Not people the Court decided were inconvenient. He’d have to ask Dick for their names, get the missing persons reports cleared.

“And Batman doesn’t know?”

“He won’t if you delete that footage so he can’t get it. I’ve got a recording for my notes. It’s not destroying evidence.”

“Except for the part where you’re destroying evidence.”

The longer he spent out here, the greater the chance Bruce or Tim would look at that footage. “Make your own copy. Show it to them when they’re more able to handle it. I don’t care. I’m just telling you, if Bruce sees that right now, it’s not going to be pretty, and Dick will suffer the most for it.”

Babs was thinking about it, he could tell. She’d so been the right choice. “All right,” she said at last. “I’ll copy it and delete it from the cave’s banks. But if Batman or Red Robin asks me about it, I’m sending them after you.” And, because she was totally the best choice for this, she sat down on the rooftop and started doing it. Kickass.

“As long as they don’t go after ‘Wing,” Jason said, then snorted. “That bastard. He’s got me buying into the brother thing. Just listen to me. If he had all his memories and hadn’t been tortured and brainwashed he’d be laughing his ass off. I even agreed to work with Robin.”

There was no way he could see Batgirl raising her eyebrows in that cowl, but he bet she was doing it anyway. “We honour your sacrifice,” she said, before adding, “He wouldn’t be laughing.”

“You’re right. He’d be crying big sappy tears and embarrassing us all. At the moment I think my display of pseudo-fraternal tolerance might get a smile.”

“Nearly done,” Babs said, tapping a few more times at her wristcomp. “I want in on your investigation, Hood. If you’re not planning to help Dick break out of the manor for a bit I’ll eat my cowl. And, if you bring me in, we can share Robin-watching duties.”

“Ooh, a bargain. Done.”

It’d keep Bruce happy, if Babs acted as the responsible big sister. Besides, if she kept Dick from going further off the deep end, it could only be a good thing.

Dick off the deep end. Dick killing people. How close had they come to running into Dick as a blank-faced tool for these f*ckers, murdering people left and right like a good little birdie? How close had he been to completely breaking? He had the nasty feeling that Dick had come pretty damn close.

—

It seemed like forever since he’d seen the sky, though Dick knew it had been only days this time, and he was having trouble tracking the hours. It was all grey rock and fluorescent lights down here. Much like it had been at the Court. The best way to keep time was to track the comings and goings of his family from the Cave. Damian’s presence meant it was afternoon. Tim’s that it was evening. Bruce that it was late at night. And Alfred meant that the day had begun.

Dick stayed awake the whole time. He tried to sleep, but his body didn’t need the rest and he wasn’t feeling the mental exhaustion that had led Cobb to put him in the coffin the first time.

He found a perch in the rigging that let him see partly through the doorway to where Bruce and Tim were working on their computers. They only left for the shortest of breaks, not even patrol. Alfred brought them trays of food, which they only intermittently ate from.

He was starting to worry about them. They always did this, and there was no stopping them entirely. He wished he could remember how he’d bullied them into sleeping and eating more in the past.

Eventually, Tim left. What he thought must be a few hours later (without a clock or the sky, without the need to eat or sleep, he was finding it incredibly hard to tell time), Bruce left too.

That left Dick alone. Alone and with nothing to do.

If he wanted to, he could get the Nightwing suit from where one was kept in the Cave and go out. He could see if he could remember the passwords that would grant him access to the computers he wasn’t supposed to be using and check on the status of the Owl investigation and what little progress towards a cure Bruce and Tim had managed in three days.

Instead he decided to go back to training, now that he wouldn’t disturb anyone when he misjudged and set off a lethal force alert. He was allowed to train. He needed to show that he could be trusted on his own.

Only then would he get a good opportunity to sneak out with Jason and, presumably, Damian. Dick was already looking forward to it.

He couldn’t remember how to operate the speaker systems in the Cave (and he knew there was one, because he could remember filling it with pop music to annoy someone, probably Bruce), so he had to train in the silence. It gnawed at him. Not as badly as the coffin, which had been soundproofed and underground in a room rarely used. There was ambient noise. The hum of the computers, processing away. Water in the pipes, wind in the upper reaches of the ceiling. But there was no human sound. He was the only living thing down here.

No, he wasn’t. He wasn’t a living thing. He kept training anyway, and he kept the lights on.

Some time later, Alfred came down with a whole cart. “Good morning, Master Richard,” he said. “I have brought some breakfast, and once you are finished, there is another matter to attend to.”

“What is it?” Dick asked.

“What is what? Your breakfast, or the secondary matter?”

Dick smiled the best smile he could, and said, “Either.”

Alfred smiled back a little as he uncovered plates of fruit, scrambled eggs, and wholegrain toast, and set them on the nearest worktable. “Eat first, Master Richard. Grossly unethical medical experimentation sustaining you aside, there is no reason not to feed you.”

That was an instruction he happily obeyed. Meals were for people. Alfred was even letting him have cutlery now.

Once he was done, Alfred took out a second tray. “Now, Master Richard,” he said, “We must both learn some new cosmetic techniques, because you cannot stay down here forever.”

Dick twisted in his seat. “You’re going to let me outside?”

“Indeed, once we adequately conceal your condition. If you will be patient a moment longer while I fetch a mirror?”

A mirror. He’d have to look at his own face. Not just look, but really look, and examine, and think about the changes. Dick looked at the various jars on the second tray - concealer, primer, foundation, powders and paints for every skin tone. He opened one, with a worn label but a tightly secured lid, and found the product half-used already. He applied a dot to the back of his left hand and swiped it across.

That was his concealer. The one that matched - used to match - his skin tone the best. Now it stood out like a smear of mud. Letting muscle memory guide him, he picked out a foundation primer, and then a foundation, pulled down his shirt collar a bit, and applied them to a spot where once there had been a white scar that peeked out over the collars of most of his shirts.

Alfred returned to see the result, a fake and obvious streak of foundation over unmarred white skin. “Oh dear,” he said, as he propped the mirror up in front of Dick. “We will have to work on this, no doubt.”

“It’s long sleeves and high collars for me, I guess,” Dick said. The last time he’d looked into a mirror it was in a dilapidated bathroom, under a dim and flickering light. That wasn’t much like looking at the changes in the bright light down here while Alfred looked on with an assessing gaze. “Otherwise I’ll be going through this stuff by the gallon.”

He’d even need gloves. He worked with his hands enough that no makeup would stay in place. Gloves in a Gotham summer; he’d look very strange when the weather turned hot.

“That may be the most practical thing to do going forwards, yes.” Alfred’s mustache twitched in a way Dick recalled meant that he was extremely angry, but not at the person he was talking to. “Now. Hiding these veins must be the top priority here, and restoring a…more natural…tone to your skin. Did those barbarians bleach it?”

“I don’t know,” Dick said. His skin really was a freakish colour now. Not white like Bruce was white, or even like Tim was white, but a flat dead white, broken only by dark veins. He itched to tear it off. But that would upset Alfred, and besides, he knew the skin would come back the same hateful shade. He had rarely felt so out of control of his own body.

Alfred made another deeply displeased sound. “Master Bruce and Master Tim will do their utmost to find a more permanent solution, I’m sure. Cosmetics remain a viable stopgap. Please hold still now, Master Richard.”

The butler was a wizard with makeup. Dick paid careful attention as he tested and blended and explained his reasoning for every decision. It was likely that he’d have to be able to do this for himself. It took a very long time, but at last Alfred said, “I think this shading will have to suffice.”

Dick looked at the results critically. He looked pale and ill. There was no escaping that. But he did not look like a corpse. The dark veins around his eyes and at his neck were nowhere near so visible. With every twitch of his facial muscles he could feel the various substances layered over his skin. Alfred had had to use a lot of stuff. I feel like a clown. He wanted to rip his skin off. He wanted to grind the paint in so the colour would stay. After a few seconds he couldn’t stand it and dropped his face to his hands. Even then, the unfamiliar texture of heavy makeup was under his fingers, rather than naked skin. “You did a good job, Alfred,” he said, voice muffled. “I hate it.”

The butler placed a cool hand on Dick’s shoulder. “I quite understand,” he said. “If you wish to stay down here for a few more days, or to go upstairs with a mask rather than use makeup, those are both options.”

“No mask,” he said. “The makeup is as good as it’s going to get.” He raised his head, avoiding looking at the mirror and what would be staring back at him from it. “What about my eyes?”

“Contact lenses. Not today, though, as they are still being ordered. I have matched them to your original eye colour as best I could. If we have guests in the Manor, I suggest you avoid them.”

He’d hidden from Bruce in the Manor before. What he had never done was felt like he had to hide. Yet at the same time, he couldn’t be greeting guests looking for all the world like a Talon. It was for his protection as much it was to keep things quiet with any potential guests.

“Do you remember how to avoid drawing attention to your eyes, Master Richard?”

That had been something Alfred had taught him. Not Bruce, Alfred. Lowered eyelashes, downcast eyes, tilting the face away. Most casual observers didn’t notice eye colour on first glance anyway, certainly not at a distance. The exception was when the eyes in question were an unusual or striking colour - like, say, yellow on a human. Distraction would not cut it.

But Dick said, “Yes, Alfred,” anyway. He wanted to get out of the Cave. He’d been underground more than long enough.

“Excellent. Then, if you’ll follow me…”

So Dick did.

—

He knew where the elevator up was. It wasn’t hard to guess; he’d seen everyone leave the Cave at some point or another, but he could remember what it was like to ride up in it. That was just the first of a veritable wave of memories that broke over him as he and Alfred reached the study.

When he was little, he’d broken a blue glass vase in here, and Alfred had been furious. At some point, also when he was small, he’d ambushed Bruce from the highest bookshelf, and Bruce had played along. More memories came as they walked through the house. There was the butt-ugly painting he and Jason had actually agreed about when Jason was new to the house. That hallway was the one where Dick had once found Cass practicing her ballet steps. That living room was Tim’s favourite, because it had good light and a sofa that didn’t poke him with springs. Outside that window, he’d taught Damian how to fly a kite.

He walked through Wayne Manor and had a childhood again. Had a family again.

“Are you all right?” Alfred asked.

“Fine,” Dick said. His eyes felt hot. He could still cry. He hoped the makeup could stand up to that, because he didn’t dare wipe away his tears. “I think I can make my way to my room from here.”

“Very well. I shall be in the kitchen, if you can find your way there. Can you?”

“Pretty sure,” Dick said, because to his surprise, he thought he might actually be able to.

“In that case, do as you like. I would implore you to be careful around the boundaries of the property, should you choose to venture outside, and I must remind you that Master Bruce does not wish you to undertake any activity as Nightwing, but this is still your home and you may go where you will in it.”

Unless guests or casual employees came through. Then he would have to hide. He shoved the thought aside and went up the stairs in the direction of his room.

He had to take a deep breath before he opened the door, but he did, and more memories followed.

Nobody had changed anything in here significantly since he had moved out (Alfred clearly dusted, though, and changed the bedding). It had never bothered him to sleep in what was clearly his childhood room when he had stayed at the Manor for a few days here and there as an adult. He’d always liked bright colours, and there were still plenty of them in here - the quilt, the armchair, the runner covering the top of his dresser, the thick curtains covering the windows. The bookshelves still held books he’d liked; there were a few holes where Alfred had picked out reading material for his confinement.

Some things, like the only actual photograph he had of his parents, and his old and beloved stuffed elephant, weren’t here. They were at his apartment - because he had an apartment of his own. The re-discovery was almost enough to make him giddy. He didn’t just have a room, he had a whole apartment, where he lived and from where Nightwing worked.

There was, however, a poster on the wall here, preserved under glass. Him and his parents, flying through the air, over big, bold text that read THE FLYING GRAYSONS. Beneath it, in smaller letters, ONLY AT HALY’S CIRCUS.

For a second the mixed emotions took his breath away. He loved that poster. He wouldn’t give it up for anything. It showed him and his parents doing what they all loved together. But at the same time…Grayson. Another mark of the Court’s ownership. They didn’t even get to keep their name for themselves. He, and his father, and his grandfather, all of them had all been born with ‘property of the Court of Owls’ stamped on them. When he looked at the text, it was almost as though he was transported back to the labyrinth, with you are ours, Gray Son hissing in his ears.

The desk in the corner held things that could help. Carefully, not wanting to leave much residue on the glass nor cover up the figures of his parents on the trapeze, Dick taped a piece of paper over his surname. After a moment, he found a pen and wrote JOHN, MARY, AND DICK on the paper.

Maybe he’d be able to say hell with it, Grayson is my name in the future, but today he couldn’t. That was okay. He didn’t have to piece together every bit of his old life in the space of a few hours.

Besides, he had one more thing to do. Dick rummaged through the closet for long pants, long-sleeved shirts, and gloves. Suit up, Nightwing. He’d need the civilian disguise sooner or later.

Chapter 15: Interrogations

Chapter Text

When Damian returned home from his daily state-mandated incarceration in the name of education (slightly early, as he had refused to wait for Pennyworth and made his own way back), he was surprised to find Gr- Richard sitting at the kitchen table, helping Pennyworth prepare the evening meal. As much as Richard was able; he had been a poor cook before he was abducted, and Damian could not imagine that he was any better lacking his memories. Damian had nevertheless seen him undertake such menial, practical tasks as peeling and chopping vegetables before, most often while he was injured and feeling useless. Another thing that had not changed about Grayson.

Someone, almost certainly Pennyworth, had made his face up to more closely resemble his usual self. He had no contact lenses, so the changes that had been wrought on his eyes were still visible, and his bare hands were still a bleached, dead white. A pair of thin gloves were on the table, within easy reach.

He was peeling carrots with confident flicks of his wrist, long strips of carrot skin falling away from the main vegetable, and he smiled up at Damian. “How was school, Little D?”

“Dull, as usual,” Damian said. “I did not show off any of my skills in physical education, I completed my mathematics exercises as instructed, and I have already written the ‘book report’ requested of me. You need not worry.”

If he just ignored certain things, it would be a scene exactly like some he’d experienced when his father was lost in time. When it was just him, Richard, and Pennyworth. The ‘certain things’ were surface issues. What did it matter to him what colour Richard’s eyes were?

“I haven’t worried,” Richard said. “Not about you, anyway. Your classmates, on the other hand…”

If the response didn’t come out quite as quickly as it once might have, it didn’t matter to Damian either. “Tt. You say that every time. I have yet to maim even one.”

“Even while I was away? Good work, Little D!” He finished with his carrots and started on a pile of potatoes. The knife changed direction, caught on an eye, and slipped into Richard’s thumb. Blood welled up in the cut, but Richard simply stood and washed his hands with soap and water before returning to his task, no evidence that there had ever been a cut on his skin.

“Would you spar with me later, Richard?” Damian asked. That had been their usual routine, when Richard was in the house. Damian got home, ate something, studied for a short time, then trained before dinner and patrol.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Richard said calmly, if not a trace regretfully. “Another time.”

“Very well.”

“I was going to go outside once I finished with these potatoes for Alfred,” Richard said, an offer of sorts in his voice. “It’s been a while.”

“Titus could use some more exercise,” Damian allowed.

Richard frowned, then shook his head. A blank in his memory, Damian assumed. “It’s up to you.”

It had been a long time since he had simply spent time with Richard. Even before he vanished, it had been a while since they had patrolled together. Not that Damian required Richard’s presence in his life. “I will join you.”

By the time he got changed out of his school uniform and returned to the kitchen, Richard had peeled all the potatoes and was waiting by the back door. “Ready?” he asked.

“It’s the backyard,” Damian said. “Hardly a major adventure.”

Richard smiled again, but did not laugh. “It is to me at the moment.”

Damian rolled his eyes and opened the back door. Behind him, Richard hissed with pain at the sunlight. “I’m all right,” Richard assured him. “Just…a bit more sensitive than I thought. Ow.”

“Should I ask Pennyworth to retrieve sunglasses for you?”

“No. No, this is fine. I need…a minute…” Richard’s voice trailed off. When Damian turned to look at him, he was staring up at the clear sky, his eyes scrunched up and watering with pain, but still open. “It’s so beautiful.”

After a minute he regained control of himself. “Sorry, Dami, I’ve barely been outside since the Court grabbed me, and never during the day.”

The moment was interrupted by the sound of happy barking, rapidly approaching. Damian braced himself to be hit by Titus’ enthusiastic greeting. The Great Dane collided with his midsection, barking happily and lifting his front paws off the ground in aborted efforts to get close enough to lick Damian’s face. Damian scratched behind the dog’s ears, and then under his chin, and when Titus rolled over, he rubbed Titus’ exposed belly. Thus satisfied that Damian still cared for him, Titus then sniffed at Richard. “It’s Grayson,” Damian said. Richard tensed slightly at the name that Damian had uttered, and he regretted his carelessness immediately. “You know him.”

The dog did not appear convinced. He continued sniffing at Richard’s ankles and along his legs. “I don’t think I smell the same to him any more,” Richard said. He offered his hand, but although Titus sniffed at it, the dog showed none of the affection he usually showed Richard. Nor did he allow Richard to scratch behind his ears.

Damian could not help but notice that Richard looked upset. His eyes were still watering from the light, so it was hard to tell how upset he was.

“Why did Father allow you outside without contact lenses or sunglasses?” Damian asked. “The sunlight is clearly causing you pain.” And his eyes…the colour was noticeable. What if someone saw him?

“It’s manageable,” Richard said. “It’s like looking into a summer sky at noon, but I can still see fairly well if I put up with the stinging. Seems like there’s glare everywhere.”

Damian looked around. It was a fine day, but pressing on late afternoon, and the light was not an issue for him unless he looked more directly towards the sun. If Grayson was struggling with this level of sunlight, midday would be more painful still, and during the summer -

- Richard would not be like this during summer. Father, and Drake too he supposed, would fix this by then. They had to. “Tt. My eyes hurt just looking at you. Honestly, Richard, go get your sunglasses.”

It did not take him long. Damian suspected that Pennyworth had had a pair at the ready. With them on, he almost looked normal. “Are you going to be patrolling tonight, Dami?” he asked on his return.

“Naturally,” Damian replied. Should he tell Richard of the Talon he and his father had encountered? It had threatened to reclaim him, as well as the other Talon that Father had captured. But as he watched Richard bask in the sun, he decided not to. Richard had enough to worry about. He would be safe here, thanks to Father’s efforts, and Pennyworth’s too.

Richard sighed heavily. “Be careful out there, okay?”

Damian sniffed, as disdainfully as he could manage. Of course he would be careful. It just made Richard smile (but not laugh, he hadn’t laughed since he came back) and ruffle his hair.

—

After watching the footage Jason had wanted her to take off the Bat-computer, Barbara understood better why he’d asked her to do it. If she’d had any tears to shed over what happened to Dick, they’d dried up out of anger for what the Court had done to him.

Not just the Court.

Barbara knew Dick, better than just about anyone, and certainly better than Jason did. Where he’d hidden certain failures and insecurities from Bruce (demanding father figure), Tim (little brother who idolised him) and Damian (another little brother even more in need of a good example than Tim), Barbara was his peer. He told her things he wouldn’t tell them, giving her more data points to work from.

So she knew for sure now that he had lied when he said he remembered nothing of how he was taken. She also knew what and who Dick would lie for.

Haly’s Circus.

Barbara had investigated them, as Barbara, when Dick went missing. Hell, she’d investigated them first. It was only sensible, since Haly’s was the last place Dick had been seen. She’d found them all damnably close-mouthed and unwilling to talk to her, an outsider. Not even her connection to Dick had moved them. Jason had investigated undercover as a roustabout and got no further.

Her suspicions of their involvement had only grown when their storage facility had burned down, soon followed by the death of Haly Senior. Neither had been ruled suspicious. It was just a chain of unlucky events. Dick vanished - people did that from time to time. The storage facility burned down - there were lots of fire hazards there. CC Haly died - well, he was old and cancer-ridden. Now, armed with Bruce’s notes, she could prove -

- that Bruce was a tremendous asshole, apparently, because his files included all the information on Haly’s Circus she needed. Great. Less work for her, but would it kill the man to tell them these things?

In any case, this was an angle that Batgirl could run down. If Haly’s had sold Dick to the Court - which looked more likely than not - then there was interaction there. Someone from Haly’s had talked to an Owl. Barbara liked Bryan Haly for the crime. He’d taken over his father’s business, he should know its dealings. Including what looked to be decades upon decades of child trafficking.

Poor Dick. Even if the Court hadn’t grabbed him, he’d’ve had to face the reality of his circus.

Batgirl left a message for Batman and another for the Red Hood, then set out hunting her lead.

Three hours of driving over the speed limit later, she pulled up under a tree beyond the outskirts of where Haly’s had set up. The layout was almost the same as it had been in Gotham’s circus grounds, the attractions set up for ease of navigation and the trailers belonging to the performers set up in a pattern born of preference. Barbara had walked in the front gate. Batgirl…would approach things differently.

It wasn’t hard to sneak up to Bryan Haly’s trailer. It wasn’t hard to get through the slightly rusted window, albeit it was difficult to get that window open quietly. It wasn’t even hard to sneak up on the man inside, since he was asleep. By the smell of it, he was dead-drunk asleep.

Barbara wrapped the bottle in plastic to contain the shards, then smashed it in front of Haly’s nose.

With a yelp, Haly woke.

“Bryan Haly,” Batgirl said.

More frightened than angry, as she’d intended, Haly asked, “Who are you?”

“I’m here to find out what you did to Richard Grayson,” she said. “Are you going to talk?”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“Liar,” she said. “He was last seen at your circus. He went missing from here, after a fight with you.”

“I didn’t kill him,” Haly protested.

Oh, how they’d moved on from I didn’t do anything. Batgirl leaned down close. He was too drunk to be much of a threat to her, and definitely unarmed. “I never said you did. I think you did worse. I think you sold him. Did you sell Richard Grayson to the Court of Owls, Haly? Do I have this right?”

“No!”

She slammed a batarang next to his ear as he cowered.

“No, it wasn’t me! My - my dad - my dad did it! He arranged for it! He’s been doing it ever since he took over it from Gramps. I had nothing to do with it!”

Oh, god, no, Dick. He loved Haly Senior like a grandfather. He didn’t deserve this. If he could remember enough to remember Haly, he was going to be devastated. “I want the names of your contacts,” Batgirl said, seething with anger. “Or descriptions. Anything you have. Everything you have.”

He spilled. Words and words and words. For all the words, he didn’t know much. Masks. It was always people in masks. She got good descriptions of two Owls, and a half-decent description of a third. When Bryan Haly was done speaking, he looked up at Batgirl with watery eyes. “I wasn’t the one who took Dick to the Owls. You have to believe me. I didn’t do it.”

“Then who did?” Batgirl said, in her very best growl.

Even for his so-called ‘family’ Bryan had no courage. “Raya Vestri,” he said. “She was working with someone. She drugged him.”

Barbara had talked to Raya Vestri, too, back when this started. It seemed Ms Vestri could act and act well. Barbara had got nothing but the usual distress and concern off her. She knocked Bryan Haly out - he deserved worse, honestly - and continued on her way through the circus camp.

Vestri kept up her own, very small, trailer. She took her occasional lovers there, but she did not have a long-term boyfriend. She had been a friend of Dick’s. Dick had trusted her.

Dick had trusted all these people. She wasn’t looking forward to telling him that they’d sold him to his torturers. To the people who’d tried to enslave him, and made him kill for them.

This time, she let herself in the door. Being careful not to wake Vestri, she took the other woman’s cell phone and laptop. She copied the data from both. If Vestri was talking to an Owl, Batgirl would find the communication. Finally, she woke Vestri by pressing a hand across her mouth and pinning her down as best she could. Unlike the drunk Bryan Haly, Vestri was an acrobat. Not trained in combat, but very strong.

Raya Vestri started awake the instant Barbara grabbed her, her shout already smothered by Barbara’s hand.

“Don’t talk,” Barbara said. “Just nod or shake your head. I’m not here to kill you. Nod.”

A nod.

“I’m here about Richard Grayson. Do you know what happened to him?”

Shake.

Barbara shook her right back. “Do you know what happened to him? I don’t want to have to hurt you, but I will.”

Slowly, Vestri nodded.

“You sold him to the Court of Owls.”

Another nod.

“Why?”

She risked removing her hand, just enough for Vestri to speak, ready to muffle her voice again if Vestri started to shout for help instead. She didn’t particularly want to hear Vestri’s excuses for her betrayal, but if she had to go back to confirm to Dick that people he loved had betrayed him and sold him into slavery, she wanted to be able to tell him why they did it and just what was so important to them that he didn’t matter in comparison.

Vestri said, “Raymond. I did it for Raymond.”

Barbara didn’t know who Raymond was. Maybe Dick would - or maybe he wouldn’t. She didn’t know which would be worse. “Is he part of the Court?”

“They took him instead of Dick,” Vestri explained, tears in her eyes. “It was Dick they wanted all those years ago, so we thought, if we gave Dick to them…”

“It would make everything better,” Barbara said disdainfully. Well, whatever Vestri thought she was accomplishing, she’d get it from this Raymond, who from the sounds of it had a deeper connection to the Court in the first place. She cuffed Vestri to her bunk and left the same way she came in.

New leads. Descriptions and a name - Leanne Fraser. They’d get to the Court eventually. She just hoped they didn’t do more damage to Dick in the process.

—

Next on the agenda, the Talon.

Tim had been running test after test on the Talon’s corpse, Dick’s knife still firmly lodged in its eye, but all those tests came up “close to human, also very dead.” Only it wasn’t decomposing. Bruce had tested its frozen state back when he’d first captured it. Now it was time to measure some of the Talon’s physiological responses while it was fully awake, and question it if possible. While he was alone in the Cave, Bruce and Damian were upstairs. As was Dick, but Tim didn’t want to call him down for this.

He got out the best restraints they had. Not the hard ones. According to Jason’s report, a Talon could and would shred its limbs on hard restraints to free itself. He didn’t need it to be totally immobile, just unable to escape. Once it was thoroughly bound to the gurney, thick bands pinning down shoulders, hips and knees, thinner ties securing hands and feet, and the one unyielding bar keeping its head in place and a light shone in his eyes to keep it blinded, Tim withdrew the knife.

Ten seconds passed. Twenty. Then, without any fanfare, the Talon opened its (now uninjured) eyes. Only briefly. It shut them again to protect against the light. Not a grunt of discomfort. That was creepy.

“You have need of me?” it asked. Without the mask in the way, its voice was a smooth, pleasant tenor that did not exactly convey the impression of ‘pseudo-zombie assassin’. Its smile, however, empty and cold with a gleam of white teeth, that did the job.

Jason thought he should refer to the Talon as ‘he’. Jason hadn’t seen that smile.

“Your name is William Cobb?” Tim asked.

“Indeed,” it replied. “Yours is Timothy Drake.”

Tim was braced for something like that. If the Talon was aware while frozen, it would have seen much of what happened between being unloaded from the Cave and Dick sticking a knife in its eye. Tim had not been making a secret of his identity in here. Too late to fix now.

“And you are frightened of me,” the Talon added.

Oh, he was. He just didn’t have to let the Talon know it was right. “I want to know everything you can tell me about the process that made you.”

“I know nothing of it. Nor would I tell you if I knew.”

“You’re loyal to the Court?”

“Of course,” it said, with soulless shark-like amusem*nt to match its smile.

“Why?”

“Ask Richard,” it said. “He knows the history of our family now.”

A manipulation tactic. Tim saw through it. Cobb wanted to open the wedge between Tim and Dick further, since it would have seen his disquiet with the situation. Just because the Talon had picked up on what Tim was feeling, didn’t mean Tim had to fall into the trap. “I’m asking you.”

Its smile widened half an inch, and it opened its eyes to stare directly into the light. He must be in pain from that, yet he showed no sign of it. They were dealing with a fanatic here. Tim was reminded oddly of how Harley Quinn sometimes smiled at the Joker. “The Court will fix the ills of Gotham. They trusted me to do my part and gave me the power to do it. And in return I gave them the Gray Son.”

“You want to talk about Dick?” Tim asked. “Then talk about Dick.”

Getting him to talk at all was a victory. If he would answer questions about Dick, he might give away other information in the process.

“I had the privilege of training him for the Court’s use,” Cobb said. “I didn’t know he was Nightwing at the time, but fortunately Bruce Wayne did not ruin him entirely. He was never meant to be a bat. He is a Talon. The greatest of the Talons, when we reclaim him.” It sighed. “He did such beautiful work when we had him in the labyrinth.”

“When you were training him?” Tim prompted.

“Practice missions. We could hardly let him out until we knew he was ours. It seems that even we underestimated him.” It shut its eyes again, hopefully overcome by the pain. “Such promise. It was art, Drake. When we get him back and educate him, more thoroughly this time, none will be able to stand against him. And we will have a long time to educate him.”

The implication about what Dick had done did not pass Tim by. “You might have got Dick to kill for you,” he swallowed down the bile that rose in his throat at the mental image of a familiar-faced Talon with blood on his hands, “But he isn’t yours.”

The Talon opened his eyes again, searching for Tim, still smiling wide and sharp. “Once a bird of prey tastes blood, it cannot go back to other food. We made sure the Gray Son tasted blood. In time, he will come back to us.”

Chapter 16: Free as a Bird

Chapter Text

After a week upstairs, Dick was struggling.

With Alfred’s assistance, he was quickly learning how to apply the makeup that made him look human-but-ill for himself. It took a long time to get right each day, and a lot of makeup. But without the need to sleep, and without any Nightwing duties to occupy him, time was something he had in abundance. He was getting used to wearing concealing civilian clothing, too. He wasn’t fond of how shirt cuffs felt around his wrists or how sleeves pulled down the length of his arms whenever he moved them. More than once he’d absentmindedly rolled up his sleeves only to look down and be reminded just why he was dressing to cover up.

The contact lenses had arrived the day before. They irritated his eyes when he wore them, but they did hide the colour. Wearing gloves all the time was almost as bad.

In spite of the discomfort of this new routine, there was an upside, which he forced himself to keep in mind: while he was dressed up, he no longer looked anywhere near so much like a Talon. He knew what he was underneath, but he didn’t have it there when he moved his arm wrong, or glanced into a reflective surface.

Downstairs was little better. Retraining himself was slow going. Too often he would slip into the Court’s habits and send a batarang flying into the heart or eye of a dummy. When he used his knives he was even more lethal. The escrima sticks were the one truly bright spot - he was rusty with those, rather than fighting the Court’s conditioning at every turn. With another week of improvement, Bruce would likely clear him for escrima sparring against living people.

As for company…Damian was trying to spend time with him, but between Robin and school, he didn’t have much of that. Jason and Barbara both lived in the city proper and were busy tracking down the Court. Bruce was always busy too, and their interaction had been mostly medical testing. Tim was actively avoiding him. If it wasn’t for Alfred, Dick would…would…

He couldn’t wait for Jason. He had to get out of here. If only for a few hours.

The Nightwing uniform had been locked away from him, but there was still the apartment he remembered. Dick put in his blue contacts, did his makeup, put on a jacket even though the day was forecast to be reasonably warm, pulled on gloves to match, collected his sunglasses, and waited. He waited until morning, when Bruce and Tim were asleep, and Alfred took Damian to school.

Then he left a note and left the Manor.

It had been a long time since he had walked around Gotham as a free man. As he traversed the wealthy part of town where Wayne Manor was located, he didn’t feel so bad. There was hardly anyone else on the streets, only the occasional car.

Dick revelled in the ability to go where he chose, towards a destination he had selected himself. How had he taken it for granted before? If he chose to go left, he could go left. If he chose to go and buy an ice cream before visiting his apartment, he could go and buy an ice cream. If he chose to turn around and go right back to the Manor, nobody was going to stop him.

As he reached more crowded areas of the city, he started to feel on edge. There were so many people. He could feel eyes on him. Could they see past his disguise, to the Talon he was underneath? Were any of them Owls themselves?

His masters could be watching him right now. Stop it, Dick. They’re not your masters and you’re getting as paranoid as Bruce.

Dick made himself ignore the people who looked his way. His makeup was fine, he’d checked it often enough to be sure. His clothing wasn’t riding up to reveal unnaturally white skin with unnaturally dark veins. His eyes were safely hidden behind their lenses and behind his sunglasses.

His legs took him along a familiar route. The closer he drew, though, the more he realised he didn’t know his own address. Or have his keys with him. The Court had his keys, he supposed, since they’d been in his pockets when he’d been taken.

Well, he wasn’t going to give up now. When had Nightwing ever needed a door? Or permission?

There was a fire escape on the side of the building, as there had to be. Dick started to climb it, but then he decided to jump for the next rung up. He could manage that even in civvies. Just swinging up the side of the building felt natural and right.

When he reached the top, he knew which balcony to swing down to, and punched in the code on the keypad before he realised he remembered it. The door clicked open and Dick entered with a smile on his face.

His home. His space. His.

He couldn’t believe he had ever taken this for granted, either.

Talon owned nothing. Talon was nothing. It was Dick who had his own home, filled with his own things. Not many things, because Dick didn’t like to have more than he could pack into a car, but things he owned that he could distribute around his home as he pleased. He chose to focus on that, rather than on the fact he had clearly left here one morning without thinking that he might not be back.

Dirty laundry where it lay. A book propped open on a coffee table. Case notes spread out on his desk. The bed unmade. Someone had come through, washed the dishes, and emptied his fridge, but that was it.

In the bedroom was his only picture of him and his parents together. He barely recognised himself, though his parents’ faces were blessedly still familiar to him.

Back in the living room, a phone rang, shocking him out of his maudlin moment. He scrambled to answer. “Dick Grayson’s house,” he said.

“Dick,” Bruce’s voice said. “Alfred called me.”

“I didn’t mean to worry him.”

“I want you to stay there until Alfred comes to pick you up,” Bruce instructed him. “Do you realise the danger you put yourself in?”

“Pretty sure I do,” Dick said. He was feeling defiant right now. Angry. He hadn’t wanted to leave this place abandoned for weeks, he hadn’t wanted to lose Nightwing, and he was sick to death of everyone telling him what to do. “I risked everyone seeing what I am and walked around Gotham where any Owl could spot me.”

If Bruce was taken aback, it was only for a second. “It isn’t safe.”

“What is?” He’d been in danger since he was the little boy in the photograph. The trapeze with his parents, Robin with Bruce, Talon with the Court. Never safe. “I wanted out.”

“You put yourself and all of us in danger to indulge your whims,” Bruce grated. “Stay where you are. Alfred will pick you up, and when I get back this evening we’re going to need to talk about this.”

Dick snorted. “Now you want to talk? There’s just one thing I need to say. I hate being locked up. First the Court did it, now you’re trying to.” Bruce never put him in a coffin, though, never even threatened to freeze him to keep him under control… “The Manor’s nicer than the labyrinth, but I don’t want to stay there all the time and you can’t make me.”

He hung up. Immediately, he dialled Alfred, partly to occupy the line and partly to talk to someone who might have a clue how much cabin fever he was getting. While it rung, he wondered where his cell phone was. The Court had probably taken it with his keys. What did Talon need with a contacts list?

“Master Richard?” Alfred asked, when he picked up. “Did Master Bruce succeed in calling you?”

“Yeah,” Dick said. “He wants me to stay here until you pick me up.”

The butler was no fool. “You argued with him about it?”

“Yes, I did. I don’t want to be cooped up in the Manor all the time, Alfred. So I left.”

“Oh, Master Richard.”

The disappointment was harder to cope with than Bruce’s anger. Dick hardened his heart against it. If he was a person, he was allowed to want to go places. If he was free, he should be allowed to actually go places. “I’m not sorry,” he said.

“I quite understand your desire to leave the grounds, Master Richard,” Alfred said. “But your manner of leaving did concern me. I do not wish to see you taken again, my boy.”

That hurt more. “I didn’t mean to make you worry,” he said. “I just - I couldn’t stay anymore, Alfred. I don’t mean to stay out that long. I’ll come back soon.”

“Will you permit me to pick you up?”

Dick hesitated. That was exactly what Bruce had wanted. Alfred could accomplish with politeness what Bruce tried to with orders. And he did not want to do what Bruce wanted him to do right now. “I’ll make my own way home,” he said.

“In that case, Master Richard, I would implore you to return before nightfall. If you insist on risking yourself, please do try and keep the risk at a minimum, and steer clear of any Owls.” A heavy sigh crackled down the line. “I will expect you home some time around dinner, shall I?”

“Yeah,” Dick said. “Okay, Alfred. Thanks. For everything.” For understanding. It was pretty clear that Bruce didn’t get it at all.

That left him most of the day to do as he pleased, more or less where he pleased. A free man.

What had he done with his life before the Court kidnapped him? Did he have a job? If he did, he obviously couldn’t go back to it right now. Not his day job.

Nightwing. He should investigate the Nightwing gear.

Like the codes to his apartment, he barely had to think to recall how to access the area that held his gear for his night work. Dick stepped into a small hidden room between wardrobe and bathroom that held two Nightwing suits with masks. Black, like a Talon’s uniform, but with a bright blue vee across his chest rather than a bandolier of knives. He traced it with gloved fingers.

This uniform would cover almost everything. But he had also torn it many times, revealing the skin beneath. It would show stark white through any gap. He could still wear it, he thought. More to the point, he was going to wear it.

It fit. It still fit. Dick did a few handsprings backwards into his bedroom just to test how it felt. Perfect.

Once he’d put on the Nightwing uniform, he couldn’t help but get out the other bits and pieces of his gear. No utility belt for Nightwing, just a lot of hidden pockets. Designing a suit to maximise his agility had its price. He moved around the little room with the ease of familiarity, stashing bits and pieces in the appropriate pockets. He knew which things went where.

He wanted, so badly, to go out on patrol.

Why shouldn’t he go out just for an hour? He wasn’t going to get in any fights. The training he’d done had convinced him that he shouldn’t do that. But what harm would it do to swing around the rooftops for a little while? Before the Court, he had lived for that sort of thing.

He’d only be a little late.

—

Tim’s alarm woke him from his nightmares at ten in the morning, his new usual time. He was a college student. He could get away with showing up to class half-asleep. Half-asleep was his new usual too.

He could deal with four hours of sleep a night. Dick got less.

Tim got up, brushed his teeth, and went down to breakfast, reading through yesterday’s notes as he went. Ten days made a difference. Ten days and he could understand much better what Bruce was on about in his notes. Unfortunately they weren’t much closer at all to reverse-engineering the process that made a Talon.

A plate slid in front of him, laden down with cooked greens and sausage. “Master Timothy, you must eat,” Alfred said. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed. Any more skipped meals this week, and I shall bench you.”

The threat made Tim look up in shock. Alfred hardly ever benched people. He could, Bruce had long ago said that he could, but he usually didn’t do it unless someone was trying to go out on a broken arm. Or something like that.

“Really,” Alfred continued, “I think you’ve eaten less than even Master Bruce. It must not continue.”

“Hadn’t noticed,” Tim said. “Sorry…” The food didn’t taste like much as he ate. It never did when he was stressed. But it was better eating than being benched.

“I am concerned about you, Master Timothy,” Alfred said. “On top of barely eating, you have failed to sleep and skipped several classes and other day work. That cannot continue either. Master Richard’s illness cannot become an excuse for you to hide in here.”

“Illness? Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“It seems as good a euphemism as any.” Tim’s empty plate was whisked away and only then replaced by a mug of coffee. “Now. Drink this, then go to your classes for today. You may return to your project after I serve you afternoon tea.”

Tim looked down into his mug. No research until the afternoon. It seemed like ages away. “I need to get this done as soon as possible,” he said.

In another surprise, Alfred briefly laid a hand on his shoulder. “You know perfectly well Master Richard would not - does not - want you to devote yourself solely to his restoration.”

If he was himself, yes. He wasn’t himself. Even after a week Tim was still finding it hard to look at him. If anything, the makeup only made it worse, especially when Dick took off the gloves to reveal naked skin that didn’t match his face. Nor was Dick his usual enthusiastic self most of the time. He’d spent the last week alternately wandering through the Manor and its grounds, running his fingers over random objects, and obsessively training. He’s tasted blood, he heard Cobb say.

He'd deleted the footage from the Cave's records. He hadn't mentioned it to anyone else. Bruce would be devastated. Jason would be angry. Damian wouldn't understand. Dick - he was afraid of what Dick might do.

He had to fix this. He had to.

Class went by in a sleepy blur, Tim’s mind still mostly on his research rather than his lessons. Every day that passed he was having more and more trouble keeping the Talon strapped dead to the table. It didn’t seem right. No, it wasn’t right. He’d known all along, but Dick.

They were making progress, though. It was useful information they had got from him. Tim supposed that was why it was a moral dilemma.

He got home and ate, as he promised Alfred. Not that he could have really skipped afternoon tea with Alfred looming over him watching. When he finished, he asked, “Where’s Dick?”

“Master Richard has gone out for the day,” Alfred said. “He has promised to return before dinnertime.”

That gave him a few hours to work without worrying about Dick. This was so messed up. He was doing this all for Dick and yet felt sick whenever he was around. He wasn’t eating, he wasn’t sleeping well, his hobbies and work had gone to the wayside - he knew it was unhealthy, but he couldn’t seem to make himself stop.

Damian was training in the Cave when he went down. He stopped when he saw Tim. “I see you went to college today, Drake,” he commented.

“Yes, yes, I know.”

“Have you made any advances?”

“No.”

“Tt.”

They’d had the same exchange every afternoon for the past five days. Tim was even feeling bad about failing Damian now. The next step was firing up all the computers with yesterday’s research, and then he dove right back in. The whole time he could feel the Talon’s dead eyes on him, even though he knew the Talon was dead-dead and not awake-dead. Whenever he turned, it was out of the corner of his eye.

—

When darkness fell, Nightwing slipped out of his apartment and leapt from the building. He grappled over to a convenient handhold, and when he hauled himself up he noticed the faint marks that had come from doing this before.

No adrenaline rush came from the leap. Dick missed that badly. But there was still the open air, the beauty of the city at night (I like colourful lights, sue me), and the sheer satisfaction of negotiating a path across the rooftops.

Last time he’d done this, he’d been sent to kill a man. Nightwing shoved that out of his mind. Nightwing didn’t kill. He had to focus on what he was doing, because healing from a fall would hurt a lot.

Rooftop to rooftop. Rooftop to fire escape, to hanging bit of pipe. Slide down, push off, flip backwards to a wide window ledge. More fun than even the trapeze. For the first time he was even enjoying his enhanced vision, night as bright as day, so easy to see details of his handholds, no need for the special lenses in his mask.

After twenty minutes or so, he turned towards the Manor, and in doing so noticed a shadow behind him. Nightwing jumped a few more, keeping the shadow in his sight. It followed. It also moved like he did. There was only one thing his follower could be.

Alfred was not going to be happy with him.

Nightwing surveyed the surrounding rooftops as best he could. It looked like he had only a single follower, not a group. This was not an ambush. Probably. Just to be certain, he led them in a brief chase, finally coming to a halt in the middle of a broad, flat rooftop. Anyone trying to pounce on him, he’d see them coming.

The Talon hopped up nimbly from a lower ledge and approached Nightwing. He kept his hands visible, but they both knew that meant nothing. He lowered his head respectfully and said, “Gray Son.”

“Nightwing,” Nightwing corrected.

The Talon ignored that. “The Court would speak with you,” he said.

“No orders?”

“Our masters have allowed you much lenience in the past days,” the Talon said. So yes, there were orders. Of course there were orders. “It is time you returned. In addition, they wish you to free William Cobb from his confinement.”

A chill went down Nightwing’s spine. “I’m not going back,” he said. “I’m not one of you.”

Even behind the goggles, he could see the Talon was looking at him with the closest to incredulity he could manage. Dick knew how hard it was to feel things other than relief just out of the coffin. “Our masters have anticipated your refusal. They wish you to know that they know the identity of the Batman, Bruce Wayne. They know the identity of Red Robin, Timothy Drake. They know the identity of Robin, Damian Wayne. They know the identity of Black Bat, Cassandra Cain. And there is also Richard Grayson’s identity as Nightwing. Should you return to us, with William Cobb, our masters will not leak this information to the public of Gotham.”

“What?”

“It is simple,” the Talon said. “Return to us of your own free will, or the Court will destroy the people you once called your family. If it is not possible to free Cobb, come alone to the city anyway. If we think for a moment that you have informed them of this conversation, we will release the information and take you by force. We will find you, Gray Son. You have three days.”

The Talon left, allowing Dick to keep eyes on him as he went. No ambush. Just an ultimatum.

Return to the Court and leave his family as hostages, until they broke him all the way and Talon ceased to care. Stay away, and watch as the Court destroyed everything his family worked for in the daytime. Jason and Babs might be all right, but Bruce, Tim, Cass, and he himself would face criminal prosecution and lawsuits on top of lawsuits.

Damian would end up with his mother again, one way or another.

He - he couldn’t let that happen.

Chapter 17: Care Taken

Chapter Text

Bruce was about ten minutes from going out and looking for Dick when the Cave alert went off, telling him of Dick’s return.

Nightwing’s return, to be precise.

He knew Dick had gone to see his apartment; in hindsight, that had probably been inevitable. Dick valued his independence too much to stay in the Manor. But going out as Nightwing? Bruce had not wanted that at all. It was too dangerous. Not just for Dick.

“Where have you been?” he snapped, storming into the Cave.

“Out,” Dick said.

Bruce examined him head to toe, privately cursing the changes in him that threw off Bruce’s read. Dick always looked wan now, even under the makeup, and never physically weary. “You know I didn’t want you going out as Nightwing,” he said.

Dick barely reacted, and Bruce hid his own ire and concern. From what he’d seen in the past ten days, that lack of affect meant Dick’s mind was back with the Owls. He never wanted Dick to feel as though he had to resort to what he’d learned to do there in order to make it through a day at the Manor. “I didn’t get into any fights,” Dick said.

“That doesn’t matter. I told you, it’s too dangerous. They want you back, Dick.”

Dick’s mouth set hard. “I know,” he said. “But I’m not going to stay here forever.”

“It’s not forever,” Bruce said.

“Just until you find a cure?” Dick laughed. For the first time since he’d come back, he laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. “When will that be? Months? Years? Do you want to keep me here the whole time? I’m not doing it. I won’t.”

“It’s for your own safety.” He raised his voice slightly, to make his point better.

“I don’t care!” If he had raised his voice, Dick had raised his even beyond that point. He was half-shouting now. “I don’t care! What the hell do you even mean by ‘safety’? Is it going to be that much safer for me if I sit here going mad from doing nothing?”

“I think that you won’t get captured by the Court again if you stay here,” Bruce said firmly. “We can find things for you to do.”

More bitter laughter. “Like what? What can I do for a living, looking like a Talon? We both know this,” he pointed to his made-up face, the only thing not covered by the Nightwing costume, “won’t stand up to extended scrutiny. I can’t have a civilian life anymore. Nightwing is all I can be.”

“That’s not true,” Bruce insisted. “You know it isn’t true.”

“Why isn’t it true?” Nightwing was peeling off his mask now, leaving large smudges in the careful countouring and patches of dead white. “Sooner or later - no. I am not having this argument tonight, Bruce. I have enough to think about without dealing with your cluelessness.”

Bruce bristled. “As long as you stay here in the Manor for the time being,” he said coldly.

“I’m not promising that,” Dick said, just as icy. “I am not staying here indefinitely. If I’m not your prisoner you’ll let me out.”

“I’ll lock you in if I have to.”

“It’s not going to stop me.”

Dick started to walk off, and Bruce sighed heavily. “Dick, wait,” he said.

“If it’s not permission to leave if I want, I don’t care!” Dick called back at him.

Bruce didn’t try to argue. He had no intentions of allowing Dick out of the Manor as he pleased, not while the Court were determined to get to him. It was a minor miracle they hadn’t found him on his way back. He did say, as Dick walked off, “I’m glad you’re feeling well enough to argue again.”

It might have been his imagination, but he thought he saw Dick’s shoulders stiffen momentarily as he went.

Bruce made several notes to increase internal security. He couldn’t have Dick breaking out. It would be hard to stop him, almost impossible, but if Dick could not be persuaded to stay inside, Bruce would have to force the issue somehow. He was not going to let the Court of Owls take Dick again.

He sent a message through to Jason: Nightwing may attempt to join you on the streets in the next few days. Send him back to the Manor if he does. He is still at risk from the Court. He added the extra line of explanation because while Jason would buck a direct order for no better reason than it was a direct order, he could also be very protective of his brothers. At the very least, he and Batgirl would conspire to keep Dick to a less dangerous part of their mission.

Before preparing to go out on patrol himself, he checked on Tim and the Talon. Tim had been quiet and determined ever since Dick returned as he did; Bruce was starting to worry about him a little. Shadows of exhaustion showed up easily on his clear skin, and he’d begun to look a bit haggard. Sure enough, Tim was in the Cave’s lab, toiling away.

“Progress?” Bruce asked.

“The same,” Tim said. Then, “Bruce, what are we going to do with the Talon long-term?”

When Bruce looked to where it was still confined (and dead, knife through his heart), and noticed that Tim had blindfolded him again. “You’re uncomfortable with how we’re treating Cobb?”

“In all honesty, yes. It does bother me.”

Bruce sighed heavily. “If you have a solution, I would be more than happy to hear it. Given what Dick has told us about keeping Talons in stasis, I don’t think I can commit Cobb to that treatment for any time more than we already are.” It sounded like a nightmare. Nor did he want to hand the Talon over to the GCPD, unsure if they would be required to pass Cobb on to the feds.

“I’ve been telling myself it’s for Dick’s sake,” he said. “It’s not been working so well for the last few days.”

“I understand.” He thought for a second. “Arkham isn’t the safest institution, but that might be the best place regardless.” The Talon would be safe from any government interference there, committed under a false name and a false pretext. If Bruce needed to question him, or even run more tests, Cobb would (probably) still be there.

“The Owls don’t cooperate with the major villains in Gotham,” Tim said slowly. “Minimal risk that he’d be broken out.”

The aims of the Court of Owls truly did seem incompatible with the aims of most of the Gotham rogues, those who were sent to Arkham anyway. Too boring for the Joker, too elitist to accept the Penguin or the Riddler, aesthetic beliefs incompatible with Two-Face, insufficiently interested in science for Mr Freeze or the Scarecrow, not environmentally conscious enough for Poison Ivy. Not to mention the masked, anonymous Owls would never accomodate individual egos such as theirs. “Arkham Asylum, then,” Bruce decided.

“When can we move him?”

“A few days more,” Bruce said. “There are a few things I want to finish first. We can keep him all the way dead. No need to freeze him. I’ll get it organised. You keep working.”

If he thought he’d imagined Dick’s flinch as he’d walked away from Bruce, he knew he wasn’t imagining the way in which Tim sagged with relief. Bruce hadn’t realised it had been weighing so heavily on him. “With pleasure,” Tim said.

—

“Do you have eyes on the target, Robin?”

“Tt, of course. Bedford is in the armchair by the east window on the fourth floor. His wife is with him.”

Barbara poked her head over the railing of the apartment rooftop she was hiding on, getting her own eyes on the back entrance to the nice brownstone Dr and Dr Bedford lived in. “What about you, Red Hood?”

“Someone just called up to the apartment. Not a delivery guy, and I don’t recognise him from the hospital profiles either. Sending you a picture for facial recognition.”

Right on cue her wrist computer buzzed a soft alert against her arm, and a photo came up on its screen, clearly from the Red Hood’s helmet cam. Barbara ran it through the program. After a minute, a second soft buzz told her that there was a match. “Nicholas Ellis-Jones,” she reported, sending the full profile back. “Matches a description on our list. No obvious legitimate connections to the Bedfords.”

“Another Owl then,” the Red Hood grunted.

“Probably.”

“It’s like an evil country club. An eviller country club.”

Barbara had to admit, it was an apt description. “Got the bugs in?”

“Yes,” Robin said. “We can hope that Owls monologue even in private.”

They’d been staking out as many people on their list of subjects as they could. Barbara had never been through quite so much wiretapping before. It had paid off, allowing them to confirm the identities of several Owls. Not all of them, though. They knew there were more out there, and that they hadn’t found their new headquarters. But that was what stalking was for.

Tonight’s conversation turned out to be dull. Both Drs Bedford were Owls. Ellis-Jones was an Owl. They had better sense to do more than vaguely allude to their criminal activities outside of all but the most secured area. Instead they talked wine and hospital politics. Barbara waited patiently as they chatted, ears alert for any inadvertently revealing comments. Robin let out the occasional “tt,” not as used to stakeouts as her or even Red Hood.

They all perked their ears up when Ellis-Jones mentioned working with Wayne Enterprises, but no, that turned out to be for a charity thing he was invited to. Bruce Wayne had inadvertently invited a lot of Owls to his various functions, Barbara had no doubt. Not so long ago Bruce had even been palling around with Lincoln March himself, and look how that turned out.

They got a few more names worth investigating, and, at long last, “See you on Thursday,” with “at the new place” on the end.

“That sounds vague enough to be an Owl meeting,” Barbara said happily.

The Red Hood sighed, “Another night of staking out,” but even he didn’t sound that upset. If they could track down the headquarters, they should be able to swoop in at the next big meeting and round most of the Owls up wholesale. “Got a message from B. Apparently someone thinks he’s well enough to start fighting criminals again.”

“What? Nightwing?”

“Yep.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good idea to me,” Barbara said, worried. Dick had been trained to kill with the Owls. It wasn’t him deliberately killing someone they were worried about, it was accidents. So many things could go wrong.

“It doesn’t to B, either. He sent me a reason and everything.”

He showed it to her. Barbara raised her eyebrows. “He came dangerously close to using the word please. Are we going to send him back if we see him? I don’t like the idea of letting Nightwing hang around the city by himself if the Court are after him.”

“He went out today,” Damian said. “From what I was told he snuck out while I went to school. He was still out when I left for patrol. Batman was…unhappy.”

Jason snorted. “As if B could keep him at home. Never gonna happen.”

Privately, Barbara agreed. It was virtually impossible to keep Dick anywhere he didn’t want to be. Thus far, only Damian had managed it for long, and once Bruce had come back from wherever it was Darkseid sent him, even Damian couldn’t persuade him to stay on as Batman. It wasn’t a shock that Dick had decided enough was enough and gone out wandering in Gotham. “Maybe we could let him do some surveillance with us, if he wants,” Barbara suggested.

“It is unlikely to completely appease him,” Damian said.

“Beats him going out by himself, though,” Jason pointed out.

They thought about it. “Surveillance,” Barbara said at last.

She could almost hear the Red Hood rolling his eyes, though she couldn’t see it. “Yeah, surveillance on him.”

“Better than nothing. If we take him along, that’s more controlled. He can come with us to tail Fraser, we can always use extra eyes.”

Dick would be insufferable confined to a rooftop if he wanted action. It would still be better than having him locked in the Manor, and she was surprised Batman wasn’t admitting it to himself. Nor could she ignore the slight, hopeful tilt of Robin’s head. He’d never admit it - well, not to her nor to Jason - but she could see that Robin missed Nightwing. And from what little Damian had said, she had the feeling that Bruce had been far too busy to pay much attention to him lately.

Sometimes it was surprising the ways in which Damian could be like a little kid.

The Red Hood said, “At least he’s not likely to get injured much.”

That was true, Barbara supposed. That much, at least, was true.

—

Bruce’s words as he walked away were bothering him. Had he really not been arguing until now? He and Bruce argued all the time. It was pretty much what they did, ever since he was about sixteen years old. His time with the Court must have changed him more than he thought.

He didn’t like the changes either.

Dick went to clean up for the night, going through the motions of peeling off his Nightwing gear and removing his makeup. He took his coloured contacts out, blinking hard afterwards. He much preferred the way his eyes looked with the contacts, but hated the feeling of wearing them. In his third bit of defiance for the day, he left them out, and left the Cave’s showers wearing shorts and a t-shirt, baring dark-veined white skin. This was what he looked like now. This was what the Court had made him, and sooner or later anyone who got close to him would be able to see it. Maybe Bruce would get a clue.

He’d definitely understand once Dick left for the Court. Three days. He only had three days, and he didn’t really want to spend them angry at Bruce. Bruce was going to be angry enough afterwards.

When Dick went upstairs, still in shorts and t-shirt, still without contact lenses, his only concession to secrecy staying out of sight of the windows, Alfred raised an eyebrow at him. “I see you have finally found your way back,” he said, and Dick could hear more than a little disappointment and disapproval in his tone.

“Sorry, Alfred,” Dick said.

“Rather,” Alfred said, which was his way of saying so you should be. “Now, your dinner is waiting for you in the kitchen. Slightly cold now, but you are aware of the microwave’s location and operation. Do continue to keep away from the windows, Master Richard. None of us wish to compromise your safety, though I know the restrictions are burdensome.”

And unfair, Dick thought. It wasn't fair. However childish he felt thinking it, he still felt it.

“Is everyone else going out on patrol?” Dick asked.

“All but Master Timothy.” If Alfred had sounded disapproving of Dick’s unauthorised excursion, he sounded deadly over Tim staying put.

“But that’s five nights in the last week he hasn’t set foot outside the house,” Dick said.

Alfred’s face gave nothing away. “Indeed.”

“I’ll go talk to him,” Dick said. “Maybe he’ll listen to me.” If he was willing to stay in the same room as him for thirty seconds.

“We can but hope,” said Alfred. “If you will go do that, I shall go reheat your dinner on the stove.”

As he walked away, back towards the cave, Dick smiled even though the lump in his throat felt enormous. Alfred tried so hard to look after them all, and they all insisted on doing such dangerous, self-destructive things in return. Now he had to focus on Tim.

There was no need to ask where Tim was. He was in the cave’s lab. Since Dick had been here in the Manor again, Tim had been in the lab almost constantly. Hiding from him, Dick knew, burying himself in finding a cure so he didn’t have to actually face what had happened. Briefly, he debated putting more concealing clothes on, but decided against it. Maybe if Tim thought Dick was comfortable with his appearance now (he wasn’t), he’d…well, there wasn’t much time left for them to spend together, not with what he was planning. Still Dick could hope.

At least Bruce had gone out. Dick followed the sound of typing and Tim muttering to himself as he sorted through information. He did that when he was stressed.

He caught the words ‘electrum interaction’ and knew Tim was muttering about work related to him. Dick ignored it, and walked through the door as blithely as he could manage, with a “Hey, Timmy.”

Tim half jumped out of his chair when he saw Dick. That was why Dick hadn’t been making as much effort as he could to chase down Tim when his little brother was ignoring him; the flinches hurt. “Dick,” Tim said cautiously.

“Alfred says you’re not looking after yourself.”

“He made me eat today,” Tim said. “Twice. And he made me go to class.”

“But you’re skipping patrol. Again. Even I went out tonight.”

“So I heard,” Tim said. “I have stuff to do, Dick.”

Dick sighed heavily. “Tim. Look. I know you’re working on trying to fix me, and I appreciate that -“

“I’m not going to stop,” Tim interrupted. Sometimes people looked at Tim and saw only his slim build and delicate good looks. Dick had quickly learned to pay more attention to the stubborn set of his chin. He wouldn’t dream of trying to stop Tim.

Instead, he said gently, “I’m not asking you to. But I don’t want you throwing your life away trying to cure me, either. There are other people in Gotham who could use Red Robin’s help. I want you to go to class as well, get a full night’s sleep, and eat a few good meals.” He tried a tactic he hadn’t used since the Court, and turned his best pleading face on his brother. He could only hope the effect still worked.

There was a long, awkward moment in which Dick continued to direct the full force of his gaze on Tim. Then, Tim cracked, and bowed his head. “It’s not right,” he said to the floor, quiet and determined. “You can’t do any of that. It’s not fair.”

“I know,” Dick said. “I’ll manage.”

He took a few steps closer to Tim, feeling like he should offer some physical reassurance. For the first time in a week and a half it looked like Tim might even welcome it, and Dick had missed it since he’d remembered what there was to miss.

As he got closer, though, he caught a glimpse of Cobb out of the corner of his eye, in a refrigeration unit. Dick tensed, and the moment with Tim was gone. “What’s he doing in there?” he asked, afraid they’d frozen him again.

“He’s dead,” Tim said, all business again. “We just moved the knife, and he’s in the refrigeration unit to make sure he doesn’t decompose at all. We’re actually going to send him to Arkham in two days. Bruce and I decided before he left.”

“Arkham? Why?”

“We can’t keep him frozen,” Tim explained. “We can’t keep him dead. We can’t let the government get their hands on him. Arkham isn’t a great solution, but it’s the best one we have.”

“I see…”

More to the point, he saw the opportunity.

Chapter 18: Patrols

Chapter Text

Damian was looking forward to patrol tonight more than he looked forward to most other patrols. Tonight, they got Nightwing back. Not in any sort of fighting capacity, which was a shame, but he would at least be out there with them. Robin and Nightwing had only patrolled together twice; once before Richard replaced Damian’s father as Batman, and once afterwards.

It was slightly unfortunate that they had to take Batgirl and the Red Hood along too, but even then, there were worse teams to work in. They had been…of assistance.

After he changed into his Robin gear, he found his father in the Cave, waiting for them. Nightwing was there too, in full disguise. Damian wasn’t used to seeing Richard in that costume, rather than the Batman one. “I don’t approve,” Father said, once he was sure he had Robin’s attention as well as Richard’s. “But it seems I’ve been…outvoted.”

Damian took that to mean even Pennyworth had said Father should allow Richard out as Nightwing, though knowing Pennyworth, there would be a sizeable list of conditions attached.

“Nightwing is restricted to surveillance,” Father said. “No fighting, except in the worst of emergencies, and even then I would prefer you call out myself or Red Robin.”

“I’m still fine to rescue people from burning buildings, though, right?” Richard asked. “I mean, I think I might be even better at that now than I was.”

Father scowled. So did Damian. Even if it was true, Damian didn’t have to like how Richard spoke about the matter. “Burning buildings, yes,” Father allowed. “I don’t want you confronting any Owls, and interact with as few people as possible. Watching only.”

“Got it, B,” Richard said brightly.

“Tt,” Damian said. “May we go now? We will ensure the Court does not make off with Richard. Again.” Damian, for one, would not let that happen. Neither would Gordon or Todd, if their assistance was even needed at all.

Father nodded reluctantly.

They took the bikes. Richard laughed almost the whole way as they drove into the city. It was good to see him happy again. They parked and scaled the building where they were to meet with Batgirl and Red Hood. “I’m glad I got to do this with you,” Richard said as they waited, tucked out of sight. “I missed working with you.”

Damian scowled, uncomfortable. “You missed nothing,” he said. “You didn’t know to miss it.”

“I’ve missed it the last week or so,” Richard said, voice somewhat wistful. “Not going out doesn’t feel right, and I got used to working with you, Robin.”

“I demand you cease this sentimentality, Nightwing.”

Richard just laughed and went to ruffle his hair again. Damian swatted his hand away, which only made Richard laugh more. Normally from there they’d get into a play-fight, but they both resisted the temptation. No fighting meant no fighting. There was no point in endangering Father’s tolerance of Nightwing patrolling.

“Awww, cute,” the Red Hood said, arriving on their rooftop. “Come on, Batgirl’s got tonight’s targets in sight already. They’re going out for dinner.”

Fifteen minutes later they were staking out a trendy Vietnamese fusion restaurant, Damian and Richard peering through big glass windows to lip-read the relevant conversation between Fraser and her associates, Batgirl surveying the rest of the property (never too far away, clearly keeping an eye on them both as well), and the Red Hood searching their primary target’s house. Only, given the public venue, their marks weren’t talking about anything incriminating. Local politics. Hearing their complaints about Mayor Hady and their difficulties with the Planning Commission was interesting, and in the long run they would no doubt be informative, but Damian wanted to hear them discuss Owl business.

After four courses, the small party emerged from the restaurant, allowing them to hear voices for the first time. Immediately, Nightwing grew tense beside him. “What is it?” Damian asked.

“I recognise her voice,” Nightwing said. “She…observed me sometimes.”

Damian looked back up at Richard. “She hurt you?” he asked.

Richard ruffled his hair again. Damian put up with it because he knew that physical contact made Richard feel better, for some strange reason. “She never laid a hand on me,” Richard promised.

That didn’t mean the woman had never hurt him. “We can confirm her as an Owl, then.”

“You can,” Nightwing said.

Impulsively, Damian reached up to put his hand on Richard’s shoulder, as he had sometimes seen his father do. “We’ll arrest them all,” he said. “We’ll make sure they go to Blackgate and they’ll never get to hurt you again.” Even though he’d much prefer to kill them, he knew Richard wouldn’t want it.

Richard smiled down at him, and Damian could clearly visualise the fondness in his eyes, behind his mask. “That’s very sweet of you, Robin.”

The four of them tailed the Owl back to her home. “Red Hood,” Nightwing called over the comm, “Time to bail.”

“Keep your spandex on,” the Red Hood said. “I just found her diary. She’s got the evening blocked out two days from now, same night as the others were meeting ‘somewhere’.”

“Two days?” Nightwing asked. “Do you know why they’re meeting?”

“Not a clue. Nefarious purposes? Now shut up, I have to get out of here.”

“Get a move on,” Robin said. He was sick of surveillance. Even Nightwing’s presence didn’t make it much more bearable. He knew Nightwing agreed with him, because he was scanning the rooftops obsessively.

“We need to get out of here too,” Nightwing said, tensing up. “Someone’s trying to sneak up on us. I see a Talon.”

Robin snapped to attention. “Where?”

“Three rooftops. East-northeast.”

He peered in that direction as closely as he could without making it obvious. Still he saw nothing, but behind the mask Grayson’s eyes were far sharper than his own now, and the darkness was nothing to him. “I trust you,” he said. “Hood, Batgirl, we’re leaving.”

“Acknowledged,” Batgirl said, from the other side of the building. “Meet at secondary location?”

“Agreed,” Damian said. “Robin and Nightwing out.”

The instant he was done with Batgirl, Nightwing practically whisked him off his feet. “Northeast,” he said. “Still three rooftops but closing in. Where are we going?”

“You can’t remember?”

“Not exactly…”

How frustrating. “You are not allowed to damage your memories again,” Damian ordered. “Now put me down.”

Nightwing obliged, and Damian started to lead him towards their backup rendezvous point. He took standard evasive patterns as he did, aware that every twitch of Nightwing’s head was an indication of where the Talon might be. Truly, Talons were persistent, as well as acrobatic and unflagging. Most of the imagination had been trained out of them, however, and that was how they lost the Talon in the end - abandoning the rooftops, travelling at street level itself for a short time, and then slipping onto an empty train returning to its depot. Only then did Nightwing signal that they’d well and truly shaken off their would-be hunter.

Batgirl was waiting when they at last ducked into her safehouse. “What took you so long?” she asked, all concern behind her cowl.

“I was just being cautious,” Nightwing said. “It was definitely a Talon. I don’t think she got a good look at us, but I wanted to be sure she was all the way off our trail first.”

He moved a hand to Damian’s shoulder while he explained that to Batgirl, where it tightened almost painfully. “Where’s Red Hood?” Damian asked. “He shouldn’t have been far behind us.”

“He didn’t get caught, if that’s what you’re worried about. He just stopped to bust up a gang fight.”

“We miss all the fun,” Damian complained. Nightwing’s hand tightened on his shoulder again, and he looked like he very much agreed.

Sure enough, it was only minutes before the Red Hood swung in after them, and removed his mask to reveal his wildly grinning face. Together, they confirmed all the information they’d gathered from the restaurant, which was less than Damian would like. Thanks to the Red Hood, though, they were certain that there was an Owl meeting.

“We split up on that night,” Batgirl said. “I’ll take the Bedfords, Robin can take Fraser, and Red Hood can follow Ellis-Jones. If we all arrive at the same place…”

Even that agreement came quickly. Damian was almost surprised how easy it was for Batgirl and Red Hood to work with him. Nightwing didn’t contribute to the discussion, and Damian wished that they could include him, but Father had said no fighting. Richard would be nothing but an asset in fighting the Owls, Damian was sure.

Once that was decided, it was time to call it a night, much to Damian’s regret. He was tired of surveillance. Robin and Nightwing together made their way back towards their bikes.

“I’m glad you’re getting on well with them,” Richard said.

Damian flushed. “They have been useful to me,” he said stiffly.

“I’m sure they have.” He seemed much more subdued now. Damian didn’t know if it was the near-miss with the Talon or being left out of discussions to follow the Owls that had done it. “They’re some of the best.”

“Tt, them? I would rather patrol with you.”

It was nothing but the truth, and yet it seemed to make Richard even more sad. Such declarations of affection from him usually made Richard happy, sentimental person that he was.

Damian did not like it.

—

He had missed patrolling with Robin very badly. He was also very proud at how well Damian was working with Jason and Barbara. He’d grown up so much recently.

Dick was going to miss him. Again.

When they got back to the Manor, Bruce was there. If he’d patrolled, it was short. He’d done that a few times in the last week, trading patrol time for lab time. He narrowed his eyes as Dick and Damian pulled in. “Report,” he said, before they’d even got off their bikes.

“We confirmed Leanne Fraser’s status as an Owl,” Damian said. His legwork, his report. Dick had just been along for the ride. “There appears to be a meeting occurring in two nights. We have made arrangements to follow a few likely suspects to their destination. If all goes well, we will close in on the majority then.”

A meeting in two days. Dick suspected he knew what it was for. They wanted their Talons back. They would decide on his punishment then.

“We were spotted and followed by a Talon in the process, but evaded them before regrouping at Batgirl’s safehouse.”

“Spotted by a Talon?” Bruce asked. “Are you sure?”

“Richard saw her, not me.” Damian looked up at his father defiantly. “I trust his judgment even if you do not.”

Disappointing Damian was going to be hard. Already was hard. “She was a few rooftops away,” Dick said, somewhat uncomfortable about mentioning something he could not have seen without the modifications to his eyes. “She tried to close the distance, but we had too great a head start. We lost her in the streets.”

Once again Bruce frowned. “You saw her?”

“Yes. She was definitely a Talon.” He’d seen her goggles shine in the streetlight, caught her moving between cover enough to see the feminine shape of her. It was one of his fellows, without a doubt.

“And you did not engage?”

No trust. Not when it came to this. Dick didn’t blame him, considering, and fought hard to keep his guilt from showing on his face. “No. I promised, didn’t I?”

“Hrm. You did.” Bruce turned away and shuffled through a few notes on his computer, before saying, “Good job.”

Disappointing Bruce was going to be hard, too. Who was he kidding? He wanted to stay. As soon as he got back, the Court would probably freeze him, just to make sure he learned his lesson. Whoever came out of the coffin would probably be a lot closer to Talon than Dick.

He wasn’t going to forget his family again. The Court already knew, and his repressing had been for nothing. So he was going to remember them instead, and care about them, for as long as he could. He’d promised. And while he was thinking of his family - “Where’s Tim?”

“Out,” Bruce said. “On patrol.”

That was…good. “I’m glad,” he said. He really was. Tim could and would move on. “Would you mind if I patrolled with him tomorrow?”

Next to him, Damian made his “tt” sound, feeling a little hurt it seemed. He’d live. It hurt Dick too, but Damian wasn’t the only little brother he wanted to spend more time with.

With what he had planned, there was no way Bruce would take him back. One way or another, after tomorrow night, he would probably just be Talon to them. But he would live with that. Admittedly, ‘living with it’ wasn’t much of a choice on his part.

“If Tim is all right with that,” Bruce said.

That was the easy part. Dick turned to Damian and smiled. “There’s always the night after that,” he said. “Nightwing isn’t going anywhere.”

—

Tim got back from patrol in the very early hours of the morning, far more tired than he should have been. Nothing like patrol to make lack of sleep and lack of food catch up with him. Alfred would be happy now. Dick too.

Every muscle aching, Tim went through the usual post-patrol routine. Stretching, showering, changing, reports. It felt like a very long time since he’d done it, even though it had been, what, a week? Only a week. And when he dragged himself back out of the showers to do his report, Dick was waiting.

At least he was wearing long pants and long sleeves again. It made Tim feel awful, since he knew it made Dick feel awful, but he still found it hard to look at Dick. He knew he had to get over it, he was making things harder at a time when Dick needed his support, but. He just couldn’t.

“Timmy,” Dick greeted him. He had a tray of food in his hands. “Want some breakfast?”

“Sure,” Tim said. Then he thought about it. “You didn’t cook it, did you?” Dick was a terrible, terrible cook. He was better than Bruce, but only in that he was less likely to set the kitchen on fire.

“I reheated it,” Dick said. “Alfred’s asleep. Remember what we talked about?”

“Yes, Dick.”

For all Tim was rolling his eyes, at least Dick was behaving like he did after injury. Tim tried to keep that in mind. This wasn’t brainwashed Dick, this was just Dick occupying the last of his bench-time with mother-henning anyone who crossed his path. The Talon, Cobb, was wrong about him. Whether or not he’d “tasted blood,” Dick cared about them. More than he could ever care about the Court.

Tim still hadn’t told Bruce about his talk with Cobb. He hadn’t got anything of use from him anyway.

“How was patrol?”

“Good,” Tim said. “I don’t have cases to work on, so it was just mugger lookout.”

“Can I come with you tomorrow?” Dick asked abruptly. “You said you were moving Cobb to Arkham.”

Tim hesitated. “I don’t think that’s a good idea…”

“Please,” Dick said. “I need to see him there. I brought him in too. I want to see that he’s somewhere safe.” Somewhere safe to keep the Talon, away from innocents, or somewhere the Talon would be safe? Perhaps both. Tim wondered if, how much, kinship he felt towards the Talon. Not because he was actually related to the Talon, no, but because of the other thing they shared. The…experience. Experiences. It made him uncomfortable.

Not that he doubted Dick hated Cobb, too. Dick didn’t knife just anyone through the eye, not even when he knew they’d survive it.

“Please,” Dick said again.

Tim was terrible at telling Dick no. “All right,” he said. “I get it.”

Dick smiled at him. “Thanks, Timmy.”

Tim made his excuses and went to do his reports. Then he’d sleep. If he was going out again tomorrow night, he’d better be rested. He wanted to keep an eye on Dick as much as he did the Talon. Coming back from injury was rough at the best of times, and this was not the best of times.

When he woke the next morning, he had to admit he felt better. A bit hungrier, too. As soon as he sat down in the kitchen Alfred put a large plate stacked high in front of him. Tim took the hint and started eating. And, okay, maybe Alfred and Dick had a point about him looking after himself. Studying seemed a bit easier today than it had the day before.

Bruce came, worked with him for a few hours, and left. Alfred dropped off lunch and stayed just long enough to make sure Tim ate it. Dick started training in the background - he still set off the lethal force alarm from time to time, but nowhere near as often as he had been last week. Damian joined him, then started preparing for his own patrol.

He was still working with Jason, which Tim found bizarre. Jason and Damian hadn’t spent a whole lot of time together before this. As far as he could tell, though, together with Batgirl they were doing a good job of gathering the identities of the Owls.

Whatever worked. Except for torturing Talons. Tim was done with that.

It was ten at night when Red Robin decided it was time to go. “Suit up,” he told Dick. “We’re going to Arkham.”

Dick nodded. “Give me a minute,” he said, and vanished back into the manor. Touching up his makeup, most likely.

They loaded Cobb into the Batmobile, knife still lodged firmly in his heart. Nightwing checked it twice, just to make sure. “I’d prefer it was in his eye,” he said, either not noticing or totally ignoring Tim’s shiver at his words.

“It’s a bit grisly,” Tim said. Bruce had agreed with him. “A bit harder to hide, just in case.”

“It’s up to you,” Nightwing said.

The drive out to Arkham was tense. Nightwing was not in a talkative mood, and Tim was reminded of how he was last week, without most of his memories. While Tim drove, Nightwing obsessively scanned the road, looking for Talons.

“There,” Nightwing said. “Stop, I saw one.”

Tim didn’t, but Nightwing’s eyes were better. Especially now. He skidded to a halt, narrowly avoiding someone’s trash, and leapt out, staff at the ready. Nightwing was already scaling the nearest wall, a familiar movement of blue and black. “Where?” he asked, looking in the same direction as Nightwing.

A strong arm wrapped around his throat from behind.

Through the panic Tim recognised it as a classic blood choke. He had seconds before he lost consciousness. He drove his elbow backwards into his attacker’s ribs, but they just absorbed the hit. The grip didn’t falter. Tim couldn’t even get out the why?! he so desperately wanted to scream.

He blacked out staring at a black-and-blue-clad forearm, a whisper of “Sorry, Timmy” in his ears.

Chapter 19: In The Wind

Chapter Text

The second Tim slumped in his grip, unconscious, Dick lowered him all the way to the roof. He had to be the worst not-really-a-person in the world. Tim had trusted him. They all had. And this was how he repaid them. He’d done what he could, he was trying to protect their identities, but if they decided to give up on him now…he couldn’t blame them. He almost wanted them to.

At least he could make sure Tim was safe. He strapped his brother into the Batmobile. The driver’s seat, of course. He stopped only to drag Cobb out of the back before locking the car entirely and smashing his remote. Nobody could hurt Tim while he was unconscious now, not even him. He’d be safe. For the moment.

Still, no point being even the smallest bit careless about it.

He got Cobb in a fireman’s carry, hauled him up to the roof, and started trekking away from the Batmobile. He had a whole day to hide out before the Court wanted him. A whole day to avoid his family.

He had better cut the trackers out of his uniform. No, he had better change clothes entirely. He had hoped to leave them in, but the risk his family would find him too fast was unacceptable. Dick dumped Cobb on another roof, ducked into an apartment and stole some clothes. He could pick a black sweater the size of a tent…or he could pick a bright green one. Dick went with the bright green. They could make him go back to the Court but they couldn’t control him entirely.

There’d be plenty of time to wear black later. If his plan failed, which Dick didn’t intend.

Once he’d changed, he tucked his Nightwing uniform into a circuit box on the rooftop he’d left Cobb on (Batman would find it soon enough), took the Talon, and carried on.

He found an abandoned building. Ideal. He didn’t want anyone else to walk in on them. He looked around, nobody. He listened carefully, nobody. He could do a patrol around the building - oh, he was just stalling now. He had to revive Cobb before they returned to the Court. Well before. He didn’t want them to doubt him too much, and so he couldn’t show them too much defiance.

Dick took a deep breath and withdrew the knife from Cobb’s heart.

It took seconds. Only seconds. The small wound closed. Cobb opened his eyes, the pupils expanded huge and shiny black in the darkness. Dick knew his own looked the same.

“Richard,” Cobb greeted him. He didn’t seem bothered to come back to life in a strange place. “I see you have come to your senses. Except for that sweater. What possessed you to wear it?”

“The Court is blackmailing me,” Dick said, ignoring the comment on his clothing. Just because he’d physically gone along with this didn’t mean he had to accept Cobb’s version of his actions. “If it was up to me I’d put you in Arkham.”

Cobb smiled as he climbed to his feet. “So merciful. I do wonder where you got it from. No matter, we’ll train it out of you sooner or later.”

Dick knew that was the truth. If the Court kept him…it wouldn’t be pleasant. He still thought like Talon, sometimes. More often than he wanted to. Soon he might need to. “It’s more than you deserve,” he said.

Without warning, Cobb struck him across the face. Unprepared, Dick didn’t manage to block it, and the blow broke his nose. “I know I was not there to complete your training, but surely someone did,” Cobb said. “Being frozen is not a hardship. Wayne and Drake were both careless in speaking in front of me. You should not have interfered.”

“It’s torture,” Dick said, once his nose clicked back into place and he could speak without getting a mouthful of blood.

“It’s our privilege,” Cobb corrected him. “As long as we live we may serve our masters.”

“They’re not my masters.”

“They are,” Cobb said serenely. “It is just a matter of getting you to accept it, Gray Son. So, report to me. I expect a full account.”

They were going back to the Court soon. If he lied, it would be discovered. Dick told him everything he knew about what had happened to the Court since the Night of Owls. It wasn’t very much. He was glad Bruce had discouraged him from checking the cases on the computers now. Since they had been spotted by a Talon while investigating, Dick also told Cobb that Batgirl, Red Hood, and Robin had been investigating suspected Court members.

He did not have to tell Cobb how far they had gotten. There was no way Cobb could get that information from anyone but him, and Cobb would have to torture him to make him tell. Dick clung to that, even as telling him as much as he did made him feel ill.

“Better,” Cobb said, when Dick was finished speaking. “Remember, they are not your family. Rid yourself of the notion that you are betraying them.”

They are my family. The Court had never stopped him thinking that, not even the first time. Dick was not about to give up on that now.

This time, Cobb saw the contradiction in his expression. “You told them not to freeze me, didn’t you?” he asked. “You did it out of your precious mercy. Did they promise you they wouldn’t?”

They had.

“If they did, they didn’t keep that promise. They took care not to keep me awake long, and to make sure I learned little, but they did freeze me after you put your dagger through my eye that second time.”

“Tim said he wouldn’t,” Dick whispered. He’d promised. And then he’d tried not to let Dick into the lab after that.

If they could freeze Cobb like that, after promising they wouldn’t, they didn’t see him as a person. If they didn’t see Cobb as a person, how could they see Dick as one? They were the same. He and Cobb, and all the Talons, they were kin too, the same weird co*cktail of electrum and god knew what else in their veins. Dick had thought - when they worried about keeping him in the Cave and made sure he got meals and let him back upstairs - he had hoped -

“Drake was there every time, assisting Wayne. Never fear, they were not cruel to me.” Cobb paused for a second with a measuring look. “Rather, they were…impersonal.”

He would almost prefer it if they had been cruel. Cruelty was something else that was reserved for people. People were worth hurting, worth thinking about hurting. Things got frozen and put on the freezer shelf at need. Dick took a few steps back from the other Talon, needing the space. He did not bother denying it. Bruce would do what Cobb had described. Tim would do what Cobb had described. Bruce wouldn’t do it lightly, and Tim not without regrets, but…

“Come, Richard,” Cobb said. “It is time for us to go home.”

—

Tonight’s Owl surveillance was turning out to be a bust, Barbara thought glumly. Three hours and all that had happened was their primary target got home from work, had a modest dinner, and then sat down to do paperwork.

Surveillance! It was not fun.

Beside her, Robin was very deliberately not fidgeting. Word from Tim was that Robin was annoyed since Nightwing was patrolling with Red Robin tonight. Barbara sighed, and said, “You need to calm down, Robin. You’re too tense.”

“I don’t like it,” Damian said. “Red Robin is inadequate protection should they be accosted by Owls as we were last night.”

“Red Robin is more than competent,” Batgirl said sharply. “He’s more experienced in Gotham conditions than you are, too. He won’t let anything happen to Nightwing.”

Robin tutted, and did not relax.

She never knew quite what to do with Robin. Robin said he didn’t like the situation. Robin didn’t like much at all. Not to mention he was as prickly and protective as his father. As far as Robin was concerned, Nightwing would not be adequately protected unless he did so himself. “He’ll be fine,” she said. She couldn’t entirely hide her own concern for him. When she’d watched him on patrol, he’d been a touch edgy, and not the confident presence she was used to.

They would run into the Owls again. She found it hard to imagine that they didn’t want Dick back.

In the apartment they were surveilling, their suspected Owl made a phone call, ordering in construction supplies. Could be legitimate. Could be rebuilding Owl infrastructure. Barbara took the details of the order and started running them against both official development plans and the unofficial development plans for their target’s business.

“He was sad,” Damian said, after the search revealed that the construction supplies matched a legal, personal renovation project. “I told him one of those ridiculous sentimental statements he likes to hear, and he was sad.”

Barbara whipped her head around. “He was what?”

“I told you,” Damian scowled. There was a trace of pink in his cheeks, visible even in the shadowy recesses of their alcove. The poor thing got so embarrassed admitting to anyone (bar Dick, on occasion) that he actually cared. It would be adorable if not for what he’d just said about Dick. “He became…glum.”

The first time Damian had even hinted that he might care for Dick, he’d got on the phone at the first opportunity and Barbara had heard all about it. At length.

If Damian had said his Damian-version of I love you, Dick would be ecstatic, not upset. Unless…

That damned self-sacrificing tendency. What on earth could have happened to convince him to do something like whatever he was thinking of doing? Had Batman found the video she’d erased from the Cave’s tapes? If he had, and confronted Dick…

Barbara immediately called the Red Hood. “Have you heard from Nightwing?” she asked, while Damian scowled at her side.

“Not since yesterday,” Jason said. “Why?”

“Robin said he cared, and Nightwing got sad.”

“What?”

“You free to follow up? I'm calling the Cave next.”

The Red Hood sighed over the connection. “Can’t leave my stakeout,” he said. “Confirmed Owl here. I’ll go back to the Cave afterwards. Who knows, maybe he’ll actually want to talk to me.”

Barbara hung up, and Robin scowled at her more. “I demand to know what the matter is,” he said. “Why is this an emergency?”

She didn’t blame Robin for missing the full implications. Intelligent as he was, he was still a child, and a child not terribly well versed in social niceties either. On the other side of the relationship, Dick hid a great deal of his doubts around Damian. While Bruce was gone, Dick had effectively been Damian’s parent - and as Dick had told her once, he couldn’t burden Damian with every one of his insecurities and weaknesses. Except, perhaps, the self-sacrificing tendency that everyone else who knew him had wanted to strangle him for at some point and save Dick the trouble. “He’s going to do something foolish,” Barbara told him.

Damian snapped to attention. And there he got it. Looked like he did know about the self-sacrificing tendency.“Such as?”

Go back to the Court of Owls. “I don’t know yet,” Barbara said. “I’m going to call B. You try Nightwing.”

If she was very lucky, very, very lucky, she’d catch Red Robin at the Cave, and therefore Nightwing, before a late patrol. Not likely. The call connected, and she got -

“Miss Batgirl?”

Alfred. Not a good sign for her.

“Is Nightwing there?” she asked, straight away.

“I’m afraid not,” the butler said. “He and Red Robin departed some time ago. Is there something wrong?”

“There might be,” Barbara said, heart in her throat, Robin almost buzzing out of his cape and mask with anger-born-of-fear. He shook his head to indicate that Nightwing wasn’t answering his comm. “What about Batman?”

“Not in the room at present - oh, no, goodness me. I’ll just hand you to him.”

There was a slight scuffle, and, faintly, she heard Alfred say, “Batgirl, sir.”

Then it was Batman on the line. “Nightwing is missing,” he said tersely. And that was his version of I am scared out of my wits.

“Yes, Robin said something to make me think he was about to do something drastic. Do you know what’s going on?”

“He’s attempting to go back to the Court,” Batman said. “Is Robin still with you?”

“Right next to me.”

“Do not let him out of your sight. Bring him back to the Cave immediately. I need you here on the computers more than I need you searching for Nightwing in person. I’ll leave instructions.”

He’d leave instructions, so she could only carry them out from the Cave itself. “This is no time to indulge your manipulative tendencies,” she snapped. Dick might be in trouble. “Just tell me what you need done, and I’ll come to the Cave and do it there if I think that’s how I can best help everyone.”

Barbara kept her eyes fixed on the window through which they were watching their suspected Owl, listening to the heavy silence on the other end of the line. “The Court has contacted Nightwing. They are attempting to use us as hostages against his cooperation. I need your expertise with cybersecurity and electronic surveillance in the Cave more than I need you on the streets. I would prefer to have Robin defending the Cave in the eventuality it needs defending.”

The Owls knew where the Cave was, that was certain. The chances of them attacking again might be low, but she understood why Bruce might want someone there to protect both the Cave and Alfred.

And, if things went badly wrong, it would spare Damian from seeing Dick with the Owls, and Dick from fighting against Damian. Damn, but Barbara hated it when Bruce was right sometimes. “I’ll go to the Cave once we’re done with surveillance for tonight.”

“Thank you,” Bruce said. “Anything to report?”

“Nothing yet. Target’s about to call it a night. We’ll be there soon.”

Under the curtains, she could see movement that suggested someone changing. The audio bugs she and Robin had installed suggested that was what was happening, too. Damian flitted away for a minute to check the other windows, then returned to her side. “I couldn’t contact Red Robin,” he said. “Nightwing isn’t responding either. I told you Red Robin was inadequate protection for him.”

“We’re going back to the Cave to work on it,” Barbara said.

Unsurprisingly, Damian looked mutinous. “I wish to go find Nightwing,” he said.

“Batman’s orders. He think we’ll find Nightwing more easily if we’re working from the Cave.” She crossed her fingers that it would work. She couldn’t handle Damian running off into the city at random.

After a long, tense moment, Damian nodded. “All right. But if I think Nightwing’s in danger, I’m going to look for him regardless of Batman’s orders.”

Me too, kid, Barbara thought.

—

There was a hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him awake. “Red Robin,” a familiar voice said, “Wake up.”

Tim’s head felt fuzzy; his throat, sore. What had happened to render him unconcious came back to him in a rush, and he tried to sit up. He must have been out for a long time if Batman had made it here in the meantime. “Nightwing!”

“I know,” Batman said. He was leaning over Tim with concern, hands checking Tim for further injury. “I take it he was the one who did this?”

“Yes,” Tim said. Sorry, Timmy. He ground the heels of his hands into his masked eyes, using the sting to ground him. Nightwing had choked him out. “What are we doing in the Batmobile? How long was I out?”

“Not as long as you think, and Nightwing locked you in. It appears he took some steps to ensure your safety after rendering you unconscious. He disabled everything that would have allowed him, or anyone just stumbling across you, to access the car again.”

How kind of him, Tim thought bitterly. Nightwing had attacked him. Nightwing had lured him away from the various protections of the Batmobile, playing on Tim’s trust in him, and attacked him from behind. So thoughtful of him to make sure Tim didn’t get beaten to death by any thugs who found him while he was unconscious, so thoughtful of him to make sure Cobb didn’t kill him outright, or worse, try to make Dick do it. And speaking of… “What about Cobb?”

“Gone,” Batman said. “Nightwing didn’t wake him, but took him unconscious over the rooftops. Also probably to protect you.”

Maybe it would have been better if Cobb had tried to force Dick to kill him. He doubted Dick would do that. Then they’d only have a fight on their hands. “How did you even know to come after me?” Tim asked.

Batman stood. “He left a note in his room,” he said. “An apology.”

“So he’s definitely going back to the Court, then.” He’s tasted blood. In time, he will come back to us. Tim didn’t, and wouldn’t, believe that second part. (The first, he was still hiding from Bruce.) “It has to be some sort of trick. A ruse.”

“That isn’t what his note said,” Batman said, grim as only he could be. “We need to find him, and quickly. He is playing a very dangerous game. Come. His trackers aren’t far away.”

Tim’s neck ached. He’d cramped up from being stuffed in the Batmobile, too. Dick had never done something like this to him before. As he scaled the roof after Batman and followed him over the rooftops, he felt the hurt. Physical and emotional.

They found Nightwing’s uniform folded neatly behind an air-conditioning unit. Even the uncharacteristic tidiness seemed like an apology, the only way Dick had left of showing his respect for the mission. And that was it. No more trackers. No more trail. Dick was in the wind - or more likely, laying low.

“But why would he leave?” Tim asked, picking up the abandoned uniform. Couldn’t just leave it lying around. It was cold, all traces of body heat long since vanished.

It couldn’t be true, what Cobb had said about Dick. No matter what it looked like. Had Tim been at fault, had Dick not felt at home with them? It wasn’t as though Dick had wanted the things that had been done to him. It wasn’t his fault that he had been tortured into not remembering he was Dick Grayson. Tim had tried to look past everything, but obviously he hadn’t tried hard enough.

“Blackmail, he said.” The words were growled in self-recrimination. Apparently he wasn’t the only one blaming himself. “I didn’t think. The Owls know who we are and they used it against him. If he didn’t go to them, they would expose us all.”

Deliver himself and Cobb to the Court, in return for the family’s continued anonymity. They would have contacted him the day he left the Manor alone. It had been such a bad idea, but they couldn’t keep Dick locked up, either. “He has to know it’s a bad deal,” Tim said. “They’ll just torture him again until -“

“Until they succeed in making Nightwing like his great-grandfather,” Bruce finished for him. “And all that is left is the Court’s slave, the Gray Son.”

Chapter 20: Preparation

Chapter Text

The news was bad. Unambiguously terrible. Jason thought he might be the only one of them with actual good news, and even then, it wasn’t the case-breaking sort of good news they’d be hoping for back at the Cave. Another confirmed Owl, hurrah. That wasn’t much in the face of Dick knocking out the Replacement and running to the Owls with their Talon in tow.

What an idiot.

Also, Dick really needed to stop getting kidnapped, or in this case kidnapping himself, because Jason was pretty well over spending time in the Cave.

He’d checked a few places Nightwing had used to hide before, not that he’d really expected Nightwing to be in any of them. If he could remember where they were, he could remember why it was a bad idea to go there when people were looking for him. If he had an ounce of sense he was somewhere else entirely. Since he had at least one ounce of sense, Jason’s search turned up empty, and he headed back to the Cave as the sun rose.

“Why can’t you find him?” Damian was asking as he made his way into the main part of the Cave.

“Because he’s smart and fast and knows what to avoid,” Barbara said. “Everyone’s as worried as you are, Damian, stop snapping at me and Alfred.”

He could hear the demon brat’s teeth grinding.

Jason stepped in and said, “So, no news, then?”

“Nothing,” Barbara said. “You’re late back. We were waiting on you.”

“I don’t see the big man and the Replacement here.”

“Showers.”

“We should go out there, while Father is indisposed,” Damian insisted. He was still in full uniform, mask and everything. If he wasn’t careful Alfred would give him a cocoa full of sedatives. “Richard could be in danger.”

Jason thought they’d gone past the point of ‘could.’ “He’s not bad at taking care of himself,” Jason said. The danger was that Dick wouldn’t. He could see Dick’s guilt over killing people getting the better of him and leading him to do something stupid. He would never give himself back to the Owls for real, but a suicide mission? That sounded like exactly Dick’s sort of thing.

“Richard doesn’t know when to stop,” Damian said, echoing some of Jason’s thoughts on the matter. Damian still didn’t know Dick had killed for the Owls. Jason didn’t know who he wanted to find out less, Damian, the Replacement, or Bruce.

And speaking of…

“I agree,” said Bruce. He had showered and changed into home clothing, but his eyes were alert and intense. If he had to go out again, Jason had no doubt that he’d be ready. “The greatest danger to Dick out there at the moment is Dick himself.”

“What even happened?” Jason demanded. “I just got a message from Batgirl here saying Dick thought it’d be a great idea to go running back to the Owls with that Talon you had locked up.”

“He asked to help Tim take the Talon to Arkham,” Bruce said. Jason scoffed at the mention of ‘taking the Talon to Arkham’, but Bruce ignored him. “Tim agreed. When they were almost at Arkham, Dick said he saw a Talon, and they left the car to investigate.”

“And?” Jason asked.

“Dick choked me out,” Tim said, walking up behind Bruce. Unlike Bats, he looked the worse for wear. Not eating, not sleeping, and then getting choked unconscious by someone you trusted could do that to a guy, Jason supposed. “Then he got the Talon out of the Batmobile, locked me inside to protect me, and left the scene.”

“We found Nightwing’s uniform several buildings away,” Bruce added. “We believe he left it there as a message.”

Batgirl’s lips thinned. Damian let out a “tt!” and looked away, obviously too upset to risk eye contact with anyone.

“‘Woe is me, I am a monster’?” Jason guessed. “‘I don’t belong here and I don’t deserve to be Nightwing’? He having a case of the Frankensteins?”

“Essentially. He left a note.” To Jason’s surprise, Bruce dropped to a knee to get eye-level with Damian. “Damian. This may be hard for you to hear, and I don’t want it to change your opinion of Dick. You need to know now. Dick killed people for the Court.”

Well, there went his good work hiding it from all of them.

You could almost see Damian swallow down the denial. “If you say, Father,” he said, looking quickly between the rest of them for confirmation. “I have killed, too, and without being tortured into doing so. Condemning him would be hypocritical in the extreme. It will not affect my opinion of Richard, I swear.”

Bruce actually smiled at him. Jason was floored.

But Tim was not so easily distracted. “You knew,” he said to Bruce. “And you knew we knew what happened to Dick.”

“Yes,” Bruce said, straightening, one hand still on Damian’s shoulder. It looked like Bruce was being comforting. “I suspected the Owls had made him kill to start with. Then Batgirl deleted one of Jason’s conversations with Dick from Cave surveillance, and then you deleted your interview with Cobb not long afterwards.”

Just like the night they’d got Dick back, resentment flooded Jason’s guts and left a bad taste in his mouth. The golden child killed people, innocent people, and the conversation didn’t even get up to “all is forgiven.” With Dick, there was nothing to forgive at all. He shoved that feeling back down. It was different, and Jason was honest enough with himself to know it was different. Jason chose to kill of his own volition, and Jason killed people who deserved it.

It was the only way. Batman might not accept it, but Jason knew better.

This wasn’t the time or the place.

“The Owls are planning a meeting,” Jason said. “He’ll probably be there. So will the Owls. We should be able to grab most of them at the scene of the crime.” Last Jason checked, kidnapping, blackmail, and enslaving people were crimes.

“That is probably our best course of action,” Bruce agreed. “Remove the Owls, and Dick may come back of his own accord.”

Barbara narrowed her eyes, and said, “May?”

“May,” Bruce repeated. “Or he may take some convincing.”

“But we’re all clear, none of us think Dick actually defected, right?”

Jason’s question was met by a leaden silence. Damian glared and clenched his fists, while Bruce, Tim, and Barbara turned eerily similar stone faces on him, their mouths all set in the same firm horizontal line, their eyes all glinting icily in the fluorescent light of the Cave. “No,” Tim said.

“He needs rescuing, not Blackgate,” Barbara added.

“Just checking,” Jason said. “Never hurts to all be on the same page.”

“If we are done questioning Dick’s loyalty,” Bruce said, “There are things we need to do.”

—

Talons did not sleep. They had the entire day to lay low. It seemed to drag on forever.

“Settle down,” said Cobb.

Dick kept pacing. He had no interest in socialising with his great-grandfather. The only thing they had to bond over was murder, and Cobb had seen most of the murders Dick had committed. Then awarded him points. On top of that, he was afraid. The Court scared him. Cobb scared him. Being frozen scared him. His own plan scared him. He didn’t want to lose his family, but succeed or fail, he was going to.

He’d already hurt Tim. Too late to back out now. Bruce or Alfred would find the note he’d left, and that would be that.

“I see you are trying to hide what you are,” Cobb said. “You should take off that ridiculous makeup. You are a Talon, not a clown.”

“I’m not either,” Dick shot back. “I didn’t ask for anything you people did to me.”

Cobb leaned forward impatiently. “You never needed to request it at all. I have been telling you from the start. You are the Court’s, Richard. You were born to be the Court’s. There has never been another purpose to your life. Our masters simply claimed what was always theirs.”

Dick whirled on him, hands flying to the places where, had he been wearing his uniform, his knives would have been holstered across his chest. “I do not belong to anyone,” he snarled.

In a flash, Cobb was on his feet, hands stretching towards Dick’s head and neck. Dick, fumbling for weapons that weren’t there, missed the block. After all this time, Cobb’s brutality still took him by surprise. He felt Cobb’s hands clamp down, felt his neck snap when Cobb twisted, and then a brief moment of blackness.

When he woke up, he was on the floor, Cobb standing over him, boot on his neck. “The sooner you accept your fate, Richard, the sooner this treatment will stop. This life is a gift. You will always have a place with us, and always have a purpose.”

“Sounds good in theory,” Dick said, “but it boils down to wanting me to wait quietly in a freezer until I’m sent to kill whoever annoyed you that week.”

Cobb’s boot pressed down hard. He waited patiently while Dick suffered through the cartilage of his trachea repairing, faster than he could die from lack of air. “If that is so, why return?” he asked.

“Uh, the blackmail?” Dick croaked, the stress on his voice more from the pressure of Cobb’s foot than any injury. There was no injury. Not anymore.

“You could have run,” Cobb said. “You could have trusted your so-called family. Surely, with their resources, they need not sit idly by. No. You chose to come with me. You only needed the excuse. It’s like I told Drake. After a bird of prey tastes blood, they cannot go back to other food.” He waited for that to sink in, then added, “Drake believed me. I could see it in his eyes.”

He stomped down once more. Important parts of Dick’s throat collapsed once more.

“You’re even allowing me to discipline you,” Cobb said, when Dick started breathing properly again.

That made Dick seize Cobb’s leg, twist, and roll away himself, sweater catching and tearing on a broken floorboard. He came to his feet staring down at his great-grandfather’s impassive face, foot on his neck in a perfect reversal of their earlier positions.

For a moment he was tempted to do what Cobb had just done to him. It had hurt, and in spite of his training he couldn’t help but panic a little at the lack of air. He wanted to see Cobb suffer like that too.

He restrained himself.

Cobb sighed. “We really will have to train you out of that mercy.” He twisted away, stood and brushed himself off. “A deal, Richard. Fight me and win, and I will allow you to keep your makeup and that hideous sweater you chose. Fight me and lose, and you return to the Court properly attired.”

Like the labyrinth. Win or lose, he got closer to what Cobb wanted for him. “Or I could not fight you at all,” Dick said. “I’d get to keep my stuff that way, too.”

A slow smile spread across Cobb’s face. “What makes you think I’ll give you a choice? There’s nobody in this building but us, and you have as much to fear from discovery as I do. More.”

Whatever he did, he lost. Dick was getting very tired of these situations. He got ready for the onslaught.

Twenty minutes later, he had three kills from four rounds of combat. It was difficult to kill a regular person with your hands, if they were prepared and fighting back, and a Talon doubly so. Dick - and he was still Dick, he was going to hang on to that until he couldn’t bear to any longer - was more skilled than Cobb. Once he was willing to hit Cobb in the same places as Cobb was willing to hit Dick, with the same amount of force, the difference showed itself.

But Cobb did not fight fair. He had aimed for Dick’s face, and the makeup Dick had won the right to protect was irretrievably smeared. Dick wiped the rest of it off with his sweater as best he could, while Cobb watched smugly on. He did not bother to complain. And though he did not want to admit it, especially not now and not in this company, it felt better to have it off.

“That looks more fitting,” Cobb observed, when Dick was done. “When the sun sets, we will get supplies first. I would prefer not to bring you in front of our masters looking as you currently do.”

“There are supplies?” He could use all the knowledge of Court locations he could get.

“But of course. Now, will you cease that pacing, or must I keep you immobilised?”

Dick didn’t feel like fighting anymore. In a few hours this would all be over. He could sit down and watch the shadows lengthen. Who was it going to hurt?

He’d much rather be doing this with anyone else.

At last it was late enough in the day for Cobb to give the okay for them to leave their hideaway. Together they slipped across the roofs, Dick feeling sick to his stomach. They moved alike, as well as looked alike. Both made him uncomfortable. When Cobb opened a tiny hidden room on the top floor of the Powercell Inc building, revealing spare uniforms and weapons, his disquiet only increased.

Now they were dressed alike, too. Same black clothing, same knives slung across their chests. Not his knives, he’d left those in the Cave, but definitely the weapons of a Talon. The ensemble was finished by a full-head hood. With these on, nobody would be able to tell them apart. Two anonymous Talons serving their anonymous Owl masters.

Cobb passed him a sword. He secured it to his back gratefully, because Cobb had chosen two heavy knives for melee combat. In this they could be visibly different, however slight that difference was.

“Much better,” Cobb said, voice slightly muffled. The hoods weren’t made to allow clear speech. What need did a Talon have for words, beyond brief threats? Beyond the death sentences they delivered?

“I know I make this look good,” Dick said. “You think I should go find a fashion show? The sword might be a bit much.”

Cobb did not go for his weapons, nor did he attempt to strike Dick. It was possible that his great-grandfather had noticed that Dick was the more skilled of the two as well. All the same, he said, “If you think I will allow this impertinence of yours to pass, you are mistaken. Every word, every action, just shows me how much education you need, Richard.” He looked Dick up and down, and added, “But you are worth the effort.”

“How reassuring,” Dick said, and followed Cobb wherever they were going.

—

Before Bruce left, he gave his instructions to Barbara.

“You’ve confirmed the identities of several Owls, correct?” he said. “Scour their computers. Find anything that might link them and us.”

If the Owls didn’t have proof, it wouldn’t matter. They’d have nothing to hold over Dick’s head and he’d be free to return. If he wanted to return. It was Bruce’s fear that he wouldn’t. The note Dick had left had been…disquieting. He’d left the names of the people he’d killed, and the reasons why he’d killed them. According to him, the first kill had been half a tragic accident, and the second out of fear of being frozen.

Even now I would rather kill than allow that to happen to me again, Dick had written. It made me realise I don’t belong here.

He’d gripped the paper so hard then that it tore. But it hadn’t torn so badly that Bruce hadn’t seen the last paragraph.

“I know just where to start,” Barbara said. “I’ll get it done.”

Damian was not so easy to convince. “I demand to be allowed to come,” Damian said. “Grayson is in danger.”

He’d come such a long way. Only a year ago he likely would have refused to stick his neck out, claiming that if Dick’s foolish tendency for self-sacrifice had got him into this position, he should get himself out. Failing that, he would have gone, but seen it as an opportunity to demonstrate his superiority, rather than a rescue mission. “I need you here,” Bruce said. “Barbara has important work and the house must be protected.”

“Gordon and Pennyworth can look after themselves,” Damian said. “I do not need protecting.”

“Someone has to stay behind. Someone besides Barbara.”

“Then leave Drake. Surely he can better assist Batgirl. I have been working with Todd and Gordon on this case from the beginning.”

“Barbara would have to catch Tim up, first, and you consistently tell me you are more able to protect others than Tim is.” He sighed, but did not dare make any sort of comforting gesture to his youngest son. Damian was liable to bite. “I know you’re worried about him. But we have to do this right.”

Even though Damian had promised not to think any less of Dick for learning about the murders he’d committed, Bruce still didn’t want to expose Damian to more than he had to. This could turn very ugly. Thankfully, Damian did not protest further, but retreated to a corner and started sharpening his favourite sword.

That left just Tim and Jason. The three of them did not often work together like this. Usually there were others around them, acting as a buffer. But it was a long way from unwelcome, even if he wished he was working with them for almost any other reason. “Jason,” he started, “You’ve been working this case. What was your plan for the meeting?”

“Nothing complicated,” Jason shrugged. “We were just going to tail different Owls until we ended up with the meeting site. Is there any reason we shouldn’t just carry on with that plan?”

“Not as far as I’m aware,” Bruce said. “If you think that is the course of action that will lead us to the Court’s lair quickly and reliably, then by all means, tell us who to follow.”

“No problem.”

Jason looked slightly awkward to have Bruce defer to him, no matter how slightly, but he did not step in to relieve that awkwardness. Jason was more familiar with the facts of this investigation; in this, Jason would get to assign their targets. They had to to do this right. First time.

Jason gave him the targets that Batgirl had been planning to tail to the meeting, a husband-and-wife pair of Owls who kept social contact with certain of their co-conspirators. They had confirmed theese two would be attending the meeting.

Batman watched through the apartment window as Dr Bedford picked out a pair of cufflinks, and Dr Bedford made sure her dress was hanging right. They were making themselves look nice for the occasion, and Batman couldn’t help but be repulsed. They were going to celebrate an enslavement tonight.

None of them were going to let that happen. He even trusted that Dick did not intend to walk meekly back ino the Court’s clutches. It was only what Dick might do to avoid it that concerned him now.

Chapter 21: Bloody Hands

Chapter Text

They met a third Talon shortly after dark. She nodded her approval, then took off across the rooftops. He and Cobb were clearly meant to follow. After an uneventful trip, she led them to an as-yet-unfurnished floor in the new Hemingwall Tower. The outside of the building was so new and shiny Dick hadn’t really considered it as a potential lair for the old-fashioned Court.

“So do we have to get out the folding chairs?” Dick asked. “Make the tea and coffee? Any posters we need to put up?”

“All that is required of you is to obey,” Cobb said. “And behave, if you can manage it.”

“Will I get a gold star if I do?”

A frown creased Cobb’s face, and Dick remembered that stickers weren’t a thing back when Cobb went to school. If he’d gone to school at all. Ah well, he’d wasted perfectly good lines of banter before. And the more he thought about banter, the less he had to anticipate his plan.

Not long now.

“Take off your hood and kneel,” Cobb instructed him. Taking off the hood was no problem, but when Dick sat down on the floor, legs crossed, he said, “Richard, you can kneel, or I will put a knife through the base of your skull. We wait, properly.”

Sure enough, both Cobb and the other Talon knelt, either side of him, without another word. Or any word, in the case of their guide.

Kneeling sucked. Aside from being far too submissive a posture for Dick’s liking, it hurt after a while. Hopefully the Court would arrive soon, before Dick’s legs went numb. He wanted to get this over with. It was selfish of him. Worse than selfish, with what he planned.

He couldn’t afford to be Dick for this. Time to let go. Give up on everything except the hope of saving his family. They wouldn’t take him back after what he’d done to Tim. He wasn’t planning to be a mindless slave either. Only one way out. And what a terrible way it was, too.

He had to stop thinking like that. This was what had to be done.

Cobb had directed him to kneel in the centre of what felt like acres of flooring. The ceiling was unusually high - when they finished this floor, if they finished this floor, these would be high-end offices - and the whole place was cold and drafty. It didn’t seem like a good place for a meeting to him, but he didn’t make this sort of decision. Obviously. His legs went numb and his knees started aching fiercely. No amount of crazy Talon modification could stop that. Even before the Court, though, Bruce had trained him to hide discomfort. He could stand this. Not just the pain, but feeling exposed like this.

He had to focus. No more Dick. No more Nightwing. He’d thrown the uniform away. Nightwing’s morals had no place here. The only thing that mattered was his family. The Court had never managed to take that from him. He had always been loyal to his family.

When the weight of his knives across his chest started to feel like a comfort again, he knew he was almost ready.

Owls started filtering quietly into the room. They stood in rows against the walls. Idly, he wondered how they knew to do it. Had they practiced? Did all villains work on their choreography at the same place?

As the room filled, he felt more and more vulnerable. He could feel eyes on him, hidden behind the white owl masks. He knew who a few of them were, now. Or at least he knew their names. He couldn’t put those names to suits or dresses.

He wondered if that would make it easier to kill them.

At last the trickle of people entering the room stopped altogether. The silence continued, and Talon felt the judgment. Cobb, kneeling next to him, seemed unbothered. An Owl stepped forward and said, “You have returned to us, Gray Son.”

“As ordered,” Talon said.

The Owl turned to Cobb. “Report,” he instructed.

“Richard revived me approximately twenty hours ago,” Cobb said. “We remained out of sight without incident. He has been impertinent and rebellious, and his time with the Batman and his allies has given him certain illusions. In my opinion it is nothing another period of education cannot fix.”

“Do you recommend stasis?”

“Of course. A considerable period of time, too. He has shown some reluctance to the idea, and it should be trained out of him.”

A considerable period of time. How long was that? Talon tried to put it out of his mind. It wasn’t going to get that far. It wasn’t. “My family,” he said. He needed to know. “I was told that if I came here -“

“You have no family but us,” Cobb interrupted. “Put them out of your mind.”

“Please,” Talon said.

“We will keep our end of the bargain,” the lead Owl said. “The identities of Batman, Robin, Red Robin, and Black Bat are all safe with us. As long as you cooperate, nothing will make its way to the media or the police.”

He meant it as a threat, but Talon felt only relief. He tried hard not to exhale too heavily, betraying it. The information wasn’t going to leave the room. Not while he was here to prevent it. Now he just had to follow through. It would be easy. They had taught him how to do this themselves. This was what they had made him for.

Over his head, the lead Owl was speaking again. It sounded like nothing. It didn’t matter. He just had to do this one hard thing.

Just this one thing.

Talon reached for his sword.

—

“This is dull,” Damian declared. Gordon ignored him. “We should be out there with them.”

Gordon did not look away from her work. “This is important too. It won’t do Dick any good to get a rescue and then have nothing to come home to.”

“Tt.” Damian turned his back on her, not that she would have seen it, and stalked off to elsewhere in the Cave. Normally he would train at times like this, lose his anxiety in exertion, but he would prefer to stay fresh. Instead, he went to the lab, where Father and Drake had been spending so much of their time recently. Trying to find a cure for Richard.

It wasn’t fair. It rankled that he did not have the scientific knowledge to assist with that project, nor the technical expertise to properly assist Gordon. Now Father told him he could not even assist with this. He had done the legwork with Todd and Gordon, it was only fair he should go.

Richard was a danger to himself. That he’d killed - that didn’t matter. It didn’t. Damian had killed, and it shouldn’t matter if Richard had. It would matter to Richard though, and Damian needed to make sure he was all right. Or, if not that, he needed to contribute somehow. There had to be a way.

He paged through Drake’s notes, lying on the bench. He still took them by hand, sometimes. He claimed it helped him think better.

Drake had written notes on chemistry articles, notes on biology, observations on anatomy. A few Damian understood. Others he lacked the context for. Yet more he couldn’t read, thanks to Drake’s atrocious penmanship. Sometimes Father had left his own additions, in considerably neater handwriting and a different pen.

Too dangerous at present, one such note read.

Damian read the notations that led up to it. It started with some observations on the Talon, William Cobb. Damian assumed the notes had been edited judiciously to prevent Father discovering Richard’s…manslaughters. Damian sneered internally. A fat lot of good that effort had done. Father had known all along. Beneath that, Drake had written on potential alternative sources of information, concluding with search of the labyrinth???, circled for attention.

Too dangerous at present, Father had written.

Dangerous when, though? All the Owls should be at the meeting. It should be safe now. As safe as it ever was. Damian had listened carefully to his father’s description of the labyrinth and appreciated its inherent dangers, the ones that would exist whether or not the place was staffed. If it was truly where the Owls…converted…their victims, then they should have information there. Something from which Father or Drake could learn more.

Pennyworth should suffice to defend the house. Gordon didn’t need him at the moment. And Grayson did. Damian might be forbidden from actually rescuing him, but he could still help.

Decided, Damian secured his mask back over his face and, without further ado, departed. Gordon would be able to work out where he had gone. Probably.

Damian was familiar with the location of the sewers; the labyrinth itself less so. He knew where Todd and Drake had found Father. He could reason it out from there, surely. The more quickly the better, too. He hated sewers. Unsurprisingly, they smelled bad. But just because the smell was expected didn’t make it any more pleasant.

He worked his way through, looking for scratches in the stonework with the night vision aid in his mask. No doubt there was an aboveground entrance, but they had not found it yet. It took far too long, but eventually there was a door.

Beyond it was a large, bare space that smelled of disuse, rather than sewage, and hummed softly with machinery. Nobody had been down here in a while. There were irregularities on the floor that on closer inspection proved to be coffins, inset into the ground. The mechanical sounds were emanating from them. Damian inspected the nearest one more closely.

It had Richard’s name on it.

His name, and an old photograph of him, too. Damian hadn’t seen it before. Grayson looked so young. Younger than Damian ever had, he was sure. Since Richard was dressed in an outlandish fashion, Damian assumed it was a picture from his time at Haly’s Circus - Richard might want it. He carefully broke the glass and removed the photograph, slipping it into a protective case for evidence. Even if Richard didn’t want the photograph, Damian thought, the Owls should not have it either.

Then he opened the coffin, releasing freezing air. It was empty, as he expected (between Father, Todd, and Drake, they would not allow Richard to be brought back here, not under any circ*mstances), but surely too small for a grown man to rest comfortably.

Had Richard been kept in there? He knew that Talons could be kept immobile by cold. Damian frowned; if they had done such a thing to Richard for any length of time, they deserved more and worse than Blackgate.

Damian moved on. He was looking for some sort of medical or experimental facility, not one for holding. He found the entrance to the labyrinth proper and avoided it, opting instead to investigate several doors painted so they blended into the walls.

One held a space that was clearly for training, from the racks of weaponry in the walls and the targets set up. There was another room off that, also made of stark concrete. The only thing both had in common was that they were equipped with hose and drain. Closer analysis showed traces of blood around those drains.

There were almost none of the amenities that one would expect in a place designed to hold human beings, not even the most basic: no beds, no chairs, no blankets, not even an area set aside for the Talons to rest, nor any space for a Talon to keep their personal possessions. No place to serve food, nor any designated for eating. The only thing resembling comfort he found was in a cupboard containing spare black uniforms - thin towels and cheap soap. Even those were more in aid of scrubbing off blood than for luxury, Damian suspected.

The entire place made Damian feel ill.

Richard had been down here for weeks. Weeks. It was little wonder he had tried to forget. A few days of ‘life’ here, such as it was, would break almost anyone.

He moved on, and at last found the medical room. They too had hose and drain, because it would not be a Talon facility if the blood didn’t need to be sluiced out regularly. But this room, in addition to a gurney and barbaric-looking restraints, had specialised equipment and some computers as well. Exactly what he had been looking for.

Damian started documenting the equipment first. Everything he could discover about the procedure would be useful.

—

Of course the meeting would be in the Hemingwall Tower. The damn Owls would pick the most phallic building available. Biggest dicks in Gotham, that was the Court of Owls. “They’re on the top floor,” Jason reported. “Mirrored glass all around. We’re going to need to find a better position.”

“Moving to the terrace,” Tim said. Jason couldn’t see him from his own vantage point.

“Still four minutes out,” Batman said. “They’re stuck in traffic. Do you have eyes on Nightwing?”

“Not yet.” Of all of them, Jason had the gear least suited for skyscrapers. He wasn’t going to let that stop him, though. There was a juicy-looking balcony on a lower story he could use for access, and it’d just take one difficult grapple across. He could do that.

A minute and a half later he was making his way up through some half-renovated offices. He could vaguely hear the sound of people upstairs, not saying anything, just being there. It had to be most of the Owls in Gotham up there. If they could arrest these pricks, that’d be more or less the end of the Court. dickhe*d would be safe. Ish. Still liable to tear himself apart with guilt.

A problem for later.

Jason hit the fire escape. He didn’t expect any of the Owls to come up that way. Thermal scanning bore it out; they were all taking the working elevator. Up and up he went, until he could poke his head just around a support and see the meeting itself. Rows and rows of Owls, arranged in a half-circle. In the centre of that half-circle…

Three Talons, all kneeling in full uniform save for their stupid hoods. The one furthest from Jason was the one from the Cave lab, the one Tim had been experimenting on. The one closest to him was a compact, square-jawed brunette with the same white skin, black veins, and yellow eyes as the men. The one in the centre was Dick.

He had the full set of knives crossed over his chest, a sword over his back, and even though he was kneeling, he was holding his head and shoulders like he had the day Jason had pressed him to tell everything he could remember of the Court.

Jason had a very bad feeling about this.

“Eyes on Nightwing,” he whispered.

“Please,” Dick said.

“Secure him,” Batman ordered. “Now.”

“Already?”

“His plan is to kill them all.”

Batman’s voice. It wasn’t a joke. Jason could see the sense in the plan, too: if they were all dead, no Owl would be blackmailing Dick and threatening the family. He could hear Tim protesting, but he was looking back towards Dick. Dick, who had a dozen throwing knives and a sword, and was dangerous enough even with just his hands.

Dick, who had lately been indifferent to Jason’s stated intent to get revenge on the Owls, when the man he was before would have protested.

He never had a chance to stop the first kill. Dick’s sword parted the female Talon’s head from her shoulders before the woman could stand, even despite his own awkward half-kneeling stance robbing the stroke of power. When he made it upright, he turned his sword on the other Talon.

Jason made a break for it, pulling his gun out as he went, and shouting “Red Robin, the exits!” over the screaming starting to break out from the assembled Owls.

The Talon from the Cave parried one swing of Dick’s sword, then two, then struck back. It hit Dick in the ribs, sinking deep. Jason let out a shout of his own at the fatal-looking blow -

- and Dick brought his sword around through his opponent’s neck.

That Talon fell too, with two distinct thunks. Dick wrenched the blade from his side, and visible through the sizeable tear in his clothes, the wound had already started to close up.

Jason levelled his gun at Dick’s chest. Behind him, the Owls were panicking. “Shoot him!” one hollered in his ear.

“Oh, like that’ll work,” Jason retorted, working hard to keep his aim steady.

“Out of my way, Hood,” Dick said. He withdrew one of his throwing knives and held it ready. Jason knew how good he was with those. If he threw, he wouldn’t hit Jason - he’d hit the Owl behind him.

He was hesitating.

Just in case, and as much as it pained him, Jason moved to shield the man with his body a little better, and shifted his aim up. A chest shot would stop Dick about as well as that sword had. It was a bullet between the eyes, or Jason might as well attack him with a flyswatter. “You don’t want to do this,” he said.

“No,” Dick agreed. His face was flat and distant, playing the Talon to the hilt. If he was playing. “I need to. They threatened you. They threatened everyone. I don’t want to kill them, but if I do, you’ll be safe from them.” Golden eyes narrowed, and he added, “You want them dead.”

Well, Jason could hardly deny that. These well-lawyered, child-trafficking, slaving sh*ts were the sort of people he killed. Didn’t lose a wink of sleep afterwards. But at the same time… “Nightwing doesn’t kill,” he said.

“I’m not Nightwing.” There was a raw, pleading edge to his voice, and the hand with the throwing knife was trembling slightly. “Please, get out of the way.”

“No can do.” His training was screaming at him to either fire or lower his gun, but he kept going. “You’ll hate yourself. We’ve got the lot of them. Red Robin’s rounding them up right now to deliver to Gordon. You don’t need to do this.”

Dick’s hand was shaking hard now. Jason went on, “This isn’t you, Dick. You’re not a killer, not like this. They might have threatened you into it before, but now you have a choice. Pick Nightwing.” He was not the right person to be giving this speech, but if it didn’t work, he was also the only one who could suck it up and shoot Dick. Tim had already been choked out once. “See what’s happening behind me? Red Robin’s got this. You don’t have to kill anyone.”

Golden eyes watered slightly in the dimness; a black-gloved hand trembled. “I’m sorry,” he said.

He threw the knife.

Jason fired.

The bullet took Dick between the eyes, right where Jason had been aiming. The knife hit Jason’s shoulder, hilt first. No penetration. The liar. He wasn’t prepared to kill someone else at all. Jason hoped he hadn’t shot him dead for nothing. While Dick was down, Jason handcuffed him, and then he turned to help Tim with the arrests. No time for anything else.

“I should have let him kill you,” he grumbled, zip-tying the one who had shouted in his ear. “This is all your own fault.”

Five minutes later they had all the Owls in attendance tied and gagged. Jason figured they didn’t have anything to say that he wanted to hear, and Tim had agreed. They had all these bastards dead to rights, thanks to the Owl masks and the Talons.

That was when Batman finally arrived, late and useless. Jason could see him taking in the large number of detained Owls, the two beheaded Talons on the floor (Jason had gone to find their heads, kicked away in the chaos, but hadn’t reattached them yet), and Dick lying handcuffed on the floor, still dead, with a distinct spray of blood and brain matter behind him.

“He wouldn’t stop,” Jason said, by way of explanation. It wasn’t as if he’d wanted to shoot Dick.

“I understand,” Batman said. “How long has he been dead?”

“A few minutes.”

Batman frowned, took a step forward, and Dick leapt to his feet. His eyes were wild, his hands were bloody from freeing himself from the cuffs in a hurry, and worst of all, he was still armed. He looked over the Owls, looked at the two Talons, in four pieces near his feet -

- then, before any of them could react, he bolted for the balcony door Tim had come in through and dived off the building.

“No!” Tim shouted. “Nightwing, no!”

Batman followed to the ledge and pulled out his grappling gun. “He’s alive,” he reported, looking down onto the next rooftop. “You two finish up here, I’ll follow him. I think I know where he’s going.”

“Where?” Jason and Tim asked together.

“Where else?” Bruce said grimly. “The labyrinth.”

Chapter 22: The Gray Son

Chapter Text

It was an embarrassingly long time before Barbara realised she was alone in the Cave. Damian, that little brat, had snuck out. She hit the intercom. “Alfred, Damian’s gone off somewhere.”

“Oh dear,” Alfred said. “I will review the footage and see if I can shed any light on the matter. You have more important things to worry about than Master Damian’s disobedience, Miss Gordon.”

“Too right I do,” Barbara replied. She was nearly there. There was no time to read through the computer files of every Owl in Gotham, so she was hacking in and deleting in bulk. Technically, she was destroying evidence, but better destroying evidence and making sure all the Bats were safe, including Dick, than any of the alternatives. They’d collected enough to put most of the Owls away, and if Batman, Red Robin and Red Hood did manage to disrupt the meeting, all of the attendees would have to answer some pointed questions down at the GCPD.

After a few more minutes of work, Alfred appeared at her elbow. “Master Damian found some of Master Timothy’s notes,” he reported. “I believe he has gone to make a solo assault upon the labyrinth in which Master Bruce and Master Richard were both imprisoned, in search of information about Master Richard’s condition.”

Barbara closed her eyes in sheer irritation. Damian didn’t aim low, that was for sure. “I don’t have time to babysit him,” she said, truthfully. “I definitely don’t have time to haul him back by the collar.”

“Master Damian is a resourceful lad,” Alfred said. If his usual serenity was a bit strained, Barbara didn’t blame him. First Dick, now Damian. “At this point we must trust that he can look after himself well enough to return to us, at the very least.”

It was not exactly comforting. “I hope he finds something,” Barbara said.

“Is there any way I might be of assistance, Miss Gordon?” Alfred asked.

Barbara shot him a sideways glance. The butler really didn’t look to be at his best. She knew she didn’t understand how frustrating and frightening this must be for him, waiting for everyone else to take action. She opened a monitor for him and said, “Start reading. I’d rather target the right information than bulk delete.”

Even with Alfred’s assistance it was a chore. The minutes dragged by with no update from the field. Nothing from Batman, Red Hood or Red Robin. No communication from Robin, though she expected that; he’d be avoiding the lecture for all he was worth. And no sign of Dick.

When she was on her second-last network, one of the files caught her eye.

Hard copy.

They had hard copy of some material that could be used to link the family’s names to their vigilante identities. Barbara swore viciously.

“Goodness me,” Alfred said, one eyebrow raised.

“Look at this,” Barbara said, showing him the file.

She waited while Alfred read it, watched as his eyes widened the slightest amount. “I see,” he said at last. “I apologise. It seems your initial reaction was apt.”

“One paper copy,” she said, frustrated. Hours of work down the drain because the Owls had made one paper copy. At least it was only one copy. Keeping files like that around was incriminating to more than just the family.

And she didn’t know which Owl had it.

“There us nothing in your investigation that might help?” Alfred asked.

“I don’t think so,” Barbara said. She dropped her forehead to her hands and tried to think. “They all know who we are, but only one of them mentioned anything to do with Wayne anything. Ellis-Jones. And he only said that he’d got into some party Bruce was holding.”

Alfred frowned. “Ellis-Jones? Not Nicholas Ellis-Jones, by any chance? Tall man, rather over-fond of gold jewelry?”

“That’s the one. The shine off his watch nearly blinded us while we were watching him.”

“Mr Ellis-Jones has been blacklisted from all Wayne events for the past three years,” Alfred said. “There was an incident with some catering staff.”

Babs looked up. “So he’s not invited to any Wayne anything.”

“Indeed not. Neither Master Bruce nor myself tolerate the sort of harassment Mr Ellis-Jones was engaging in. I can bring you our blacklist, if that will help.”

It was a wafer-thin lead. A single mention of Wayne businesses where no mention of Wayne businesses should have been. But she was more than willing to chase it when it was the only lead she had. “I’ll head out and toss his place,” she said. “I’ll keep an eye out for the others.”

“Very good, Miss Gordon,” Alfred said.

—

The flight down from the tower was a blur. There were too many lights in this part of town, and they stabbed at his eyes relentlessly. Or maybe it was because of the tears in his eyes. He’d failed. He’d failed.

Kill the Court, then himself. That had been the plan. He would have preferred to turn himself in and face justice, but that would have revealed the family’s identities as surely as the Court had threatened to.

But the Court was still alive, and the family he’d sacrificed himself for still hated him. The worst of both worlds. Jason had shot him in the head and cuffed him. Tim hadn’t even looked at him. Bruce had, not that that had been any better. He could feel the disapproval and disappointment in that hidden gaze. He deserved it. He’d been prepared for them to hate him, if not to face it.

They’d left him in a pile with the other Talons. Two beheaded, one shot. If they’d caught him…

He couldn’t let them catch him, not until he was back at the labyrinth. Maybe not even then, if they planned to freeze him.

Talon slipped through the city like he had on the Night of Owls, but in reverse. Heading down, away from his family. He was glad to be away from the lights. Who had he been trying to fool? He belonged down here, unnatural, undead thing that he was. He belonged in a grave. He just had things to do first.

Bruce - Batman, what right did he have to use Batman’s given name? - would be following him. Batman at least, maybe others. None of them were as fast as he was, none as at ease in the darkness. If he didn’t dawdle, he had time.

From the skyscrapers to the sewers. Talon could see down here, easily. No night vision mask required. This was his home, after all. His birthplace. Why shouldn’t he be adjusted to conditions down here? He made his way all the way through to the labyrinth. He still couldn’t recall much about the first time he’d been brought in here, but he definitely remembered the times after he’d become what he was now. He’d bloodied his knives for the Court, to keep himself out of his coffin and preserve the hope of returning to his family.

That had turned out well.

The labyrinth was still familiar to him. More familiar than Nightwing’s apartment. He made his way across the top and to where the coffins were. He wasn’t going back in one, not now and not ever.

As he dropped silently to the ground, he realised that someone had been in here recently. A coffin stood open. Immediately wary, Talon approached with caution.

It was his coffin that had been opened. The rest were untouched, but his stood open. Someone had removed his photograph from its front. Had it been one of the Owls, or a member of his family? He didn’t know. He supposed it didn’t matter. It didn’t change what he had to do.

Just like he couldn’t allow the Court to live, his fellow Talons had to be destroyed. They were his kin too. However they’d started out, the Court had made them all alike, and Talon owed them better than to leave them down here in frozen misery and insanity. He’d kill them all too, before he allowed himself to follow them. They’d all finally get some rest that way.

Talon held his sword loosely at his side and surveyed the room full of coffins. He’d start with the oldest, he decided. He’d just prised open the first coffin when there was a sound nearby. Footsteps.

“Richard?”

Dick jerked backwards in shock. “Damian?” he asked hoarsely. “Damian, what are you doing here?” They wouldn’t have sent Damian to meet him here. Not alone. Not now. No, this had to be Damian’s idea. That solved the mystery of who had opened his coffin.

“You’re one to talk,” Damian sniffed. “I came to see if there was any material here to aid Father and Drake in finding a cure for your current condition. I was reasonably certain there would be no Owls down here to interfere with my search.”

Didn’t he know? Hadn’t anyone told him?

“I have found some items that may be of use,” Damian said. “If - if you will come with me, we can deliver the information to Father and Drake. They will surely be able to make something of it, and you will be that much closer to being restored.”

There was a small waver in Damian’s voice on the final words. Dick’s heart ached. Damian didn’t know. “Damian,” he started, and then words failed him. “Damian, I can’t.”

“Father informed us of the blackmail. By now they should have detained the Court. It is perfectly safe for you to return.”

He was so sure of himself. So certain. Dick lowered his sword and crossed the room to his little brother and, without thinking about it too hard, wrapped him in a hug. He hadn’t thought he’d be able to do this again. He couldn’t pass up the chance. “I can’t,” Dick said quietly. “It’s not about the Court. It’s about me. What - what I’ve done.”

As usual, Damian didn’t relax in the embrace. He rarely did. “Father told us you killed while you were with the Court,” Damian said, and oh, he was trying so hard to be stoic. Dick had hurt him. What Dick had done upset him. Dick had never wanted that. He wished he could fix it. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

Damian broke away, then, and said, “I’ve seen the whole facility, except for the maze. I…I think just existing here would constitute torture. None of us think less of you for breaking. I was the last to discover your…actions. The ones the Owls forced you to. Todd and Gordon hid your confession, Drake deleted his interrogation of your ancestor, and Father, he knew all along. It doesn’t matter to us.” His voice cracked. “Please, Richard.”

Dick could feel heat behind his eyes again, more tears pressing for escape. But if he had to shatter Damian’s illusions of him as a pure victim of the Court, he would. “It’s not just that,” Dick said. “I was planning to kill them all tonight. Every last one. I would have, too, if Jason hadn’t stopped me.”

He’d used his sword. He’d gone for his knives. He’d considered throwing it over Jason’s shoulder, but even the slightest risk of hitting him was too much, and he’d pulled the throw at the last second so only the hilt would hit him.

Pick Nightwing. He wanted to, more than anything.

Damian was scowling up at him. “But you didn’t. Todd stopped you. So you can come home.”

“Dami,” he said, “This is my home.”

A small fist hit him hard in the mouth, hard enough to knock Dick on his ass. His lip split, then healed. “It is not,” Damian said, low and furious. “This is not anybody’s home. Least of all yours.”

Behind him, a new voice said, “I agree.”

Bruce’s voice. He’d run out of time. Dick pushed himself up and did his best to put space between himself, Damian, and Bruce - and to put himself between the Bats and the coffins. “Why did you come here, Batman?” he asked.

“To get you, of course,” Bruce said. “Like Damian, I want you to return home. Not here.”

Oh no. He had to hurry. Talon opened the coffin he was standing next to and slashed down, beheading the Talon inside. Sleep well, he thought, but then he darted to the next one. No time.

Before his sword could take another head, a black-gauntleted fist crashed into his jaw. Talon felt it break, and as he reeled backwards from the sheer power of the blow, Batman seized his arms and pinned them behind his back. “What are you doing?” Bruce asked, horror in his voice.

Dick wrenched out of the hold. Something in his shoulders tore as he did, but he’d been trained to prevent that affecting him overmuch. It’d be fixed in a few seconds. He danced backwards, away from Batman’s attempts to grab him again, and once his arms were healed enough, he flipped over his attacker and beheaded the second Talon.

“Richard!” Damian shouted. “Stop! You’re killing them!”

“I’m saving them,” Talon said. He kicked out at Batman, connected with the other man’s core, and won the space to open a third coffin and behead a third Talon. Every minute this fight went on was more in his favour. He didn’t tire and didn’t care if he got hurt. To Batman, he said, “I won’t let you keep any of us like this.”

“We are not going to freeze you, Dick,” Batman said. He kicked Talon’s right knee out from under him, with a nasty crunching sound.

Talon rolled away before Batman could get him in a more substantial pin. He wouldn’t make the same mistake as he had before, and pick a hold Talon could simply dislocate his shoulders out of. “You did it to Cobb,” Dick replied, maintaining his distance. “If you can do it to one of us, you could do it to any of us.”

“We were wrong,” Bruce replied steadily. “We shouldn’t have.”

“Why should I trust you?” Dick asked. “You lied to me.”

“I was wrong,” Bruce said. He pushed down his cowl, so Dick could see his face. He could see every line around his mouth, creasing his forehead, the wrinkles forming around his eyes, the grey hairs just starting to collect into streaks. “Dick, please.”

Dick opened a fourth coffin, eyes never leaving Bruce. His sword hovered over the frozen Talon’s neck.

Before he could lower it, Bruce lunged. His hand closed around Dick’s wrist, not even tight enough to bruise. He wouldn’t even have to try to get out of that hold. All he had to do was lower his arm. “Please,” Bruce said again. “I came to stop you from murdering them.”

All he had to do was lower his arm. Another head would part from another set of shoulders, and in half an hour, nobody would be able to revive the Talon. Another Talon freed.

Bruce had used the word murder. Murder was something a person did to another person. You couldn’t murder a chair. A chair couldn’t murder anyone.

A flash of movement caught his eye. A yellow cape. Damian. As Dick watched, Damian reached into the second coffin and carefully lined up severed head and body, so the wound could heal. Then, just as carefully, he tied the Talon’s hands and feet, before climbing out and leaving the coffin open. “We will need more rope,” he said.

“We’re going to need more than that,” Bruce said. “Call Alfred. We have to find somewhere to treat and rehabilitate all of them.”

Dick’s grip weakened around the hilt of his sword. “You - you mean that?”

“Yes,” Bruce said. “If we can find a way to cure you, we can find a way to cure them, too.”

He looked up into Bruce’s uncovered eyes, and then down at the gentle grip on his wrist, and over to Damian, just climbing out of the third coffin, having treated that Talon the same as he had the previous two, and prioritising them just as he would have an injured civilian.

Nightwing always tried to trust people.

“Okay,” he said, and lowered his sword, point first, to the cement beside the coffin.

—

The instant the police had the Owls in hand, Tim headed for the balcony.

“Wait up, Red,” Jason said from behind him.

“Not waiting,” Tim replied.

“You going after them?”

“It’s my fault,” Tim said. Quietly, so none of the police could hear.

Red Hood looked at him. The helmet hid his precise expression, but Tim knew him well enough to tell when he was thinking something over. “Your fault for letting him knock you out and and stuff you in the Batmobile while he waltzed off with his creepy grandpa?”

“My fault for not helping him more before that,” Tim said. “You haven’t been in the Manor. I - it just wasn’t the same, you know? I should have been more supportive, but I let myself get distracted.” He’d known he’d been flinching away, and he’d seen how it had hurt Dick, and he hadn’t stopped himself. His fault.

A second passed. Tim could feel the curious gazes of some of the police standing guard, as well as the impassive stare of the red helmet. “Okay,” Jason said at last. “I’ll take care of things here. But just this once, all right? I’m not much for cops.”

“Thanks.”

It was a fairly long trip to the labyrinth, and halfway there he was hailed by Batgirl. “Hey, Red Robin,” she said. “What’re you doing here?”

“Tracking down Batman and Nightwing,” he replied, grappling up to the rooftop from which she’d spotted him and started waving for his attention. “I thought you were taking care of the computer side of things.”

She smiled a vicious, triumphant smile. “Until about fifteen minutes ago, one of them had a hard copy of all their evidence on our identities. Now they don’t. All clear. Provided you boys got the Owls arrested.”

“Red Hood’s just looking after the last of it. I’ll tell the others when I actually find them.”

“Got it,” Batgirl said. “Oh, and if you see Robin, tell him he’s in trouble. He found your notes and snuck out to do something he thought was more useful.” She turned around, making her own way back, but stopped to say, “Make sure they’re all fine, will you?”

Tim’s voice dried up in his throat, and all he could do was nod.

Getting to the labyrinth seemed to take forever. It was because he didn’t want to go down there, he knew. The labyrinth scared him more than a meeting full of Owls. A meeting full of Owls hadn’t kept Batman trapped for a week, Dick trapped for more than a month. The labyrinth had done that. Bruce had described a maze with smooth walls and stark white lighting, always filled with the sound of the fountain in the centre. Somewhere with nowhere to hide. Somewhere with no peace.

He was surprised to hear voices - indistinct conversation, in fact - as he finally arrived at the sewer entrance. The labyrinth had never sounded to him like a good place for a chat.

Tim picked out Damian’s voice first. It carried well. Then Bruce’s lower rumble. Then, at last, he heard Dick’s voice.

Normal conversational range. They weren’t fighting.

He hurried forward.

Whatever Batman, Robin, and Nightwing were doing down here, it was serious business, Tim realised. All the coffins were standing open, the Talons themselves bound hand and foot but awake and able to move at least a little. Several of the ones Tim passed were blinking their golden eyes experimentally and testing the strength of the ropes they were tied in.

Tim ignored them. He had other priorities right now. He’d help in a few minutes.

The three he was looking for were in a small medical room, deep in conversation. Dick heard him first, sharper hearing obviously serving him well, and turned.

The expression on his face was - devastating. Golden eyes, corpse-white skin, dark veins. Tim chose to focus on how guilty Dick looked instead. “Tim,” he breathed, and took a few steps towards him before stopping in his tracks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know, there’s no excuse, but I’m sorry.” His hands twitched at his sides in a gesture Tim knew well. Dick was repressing his need for physical contact.

He couldn’t pretend that being attacked from behind hadn’t hurt, physically and emotionally, but they could talk about that later. There had to be a later for them to talk about it. That was more important than anything else.

“It’s all right,” Tim said, and crossed the room to let Dick hug him.

Chapter 23: Until You Make It

Chapter Text

One week. A week of no patrol. Jason was going nuts, and he still had another week in the damned cast. He’d be just about ready to climb the walls, if climbing the walls wasn’t one of the activities strictly prohibited by the doctor.

He’d cooked enough food for the next month and had it all safely packed away in the freezers of his various safehouses. He’d cleaned all his guns and various other weapons. He’d done the usual updates on his computers. He’d read three books he’d been waiting for the time to appreciate properly.

He was used to more training and the rigours of regular patrol. He couldn’t sleep.

He’d just got out Pride and Prejudice for the fourth time (maybe fifth, who cared, it was a great book) when there was a brief rattling from the skylight, followed by a head poking through, and a cheery “Hiya, Jason!”

Salt in the metaphorical wound. Here came the one of them who couldn’t get laid up injured and barred from patrol for a month. “Dick,” Jason greeted him.

Dick dropped all the way through the skylight, pulling it shut after him in a single smooth movement. Really, why had he even bought the apartment with a skylight? It was irresistible Bat-bait, a giant sign on his roof saying ‘please, literally drop in on me.’

“I heard you broke your arm,” Dick said.

“I’m wearing the cast for style.”

Dick eyed it. Jason had the horrible feeling that somewhere in Dick’s bag of Bat-tricks was a permanent marker. And he would sign the damn cast given half a chance, too. He wouldn’t draw dicks on it like Roy already tried, but hearts and flowers definitely. Jason shifted his broken arm away protectively. Dick was hard enough to physically dissuade when Jason had two working arms. “What happened?” he asked, when he’d been convinced that he couldn’t get to the cast with a marker without hurting Jason more.

“Dumb mook got lucky with a hammer. Wasn’t even a respectable villain.” The mook had come out second-best, naturally. He broke Jason’s arm? Jason broke his teeth. “What’re you doing here?”

“I heard you broke your arm,” Dick repeated.

Jason just looked at him.

Dick cracked, and admitted, “And I was arguing with Bruce again.”

That was more like it. Dick’s arguments with Bruce, Jason had learned over the past few months, usually ended up with him stalking off to find someone to vent to. Jason still wasn’t used to being on the list. Extroverted freak. Couldn’t he skip to brooding by himself like the rest of them? “What about?” Jason asked.

“My uniform,” Dick said, scowling a little. “I keep telling him there’s no reason not to redesign for full mobility - I mean, what does it matter if I get shot, right?- but all he says is that it breeds bad habits. No matter how many times I tell him that I’m less likely to get hit at all in a lighter costume and I don’t care if I do, he just won’t listen.” He finished his complaint off with a huff of irritation, and started pacing around Jason’s apartment restlessly.

“Well, he’s not going to use you as a meatshield, is he?” That was a thing that kept happening. Dick would act not far off normal, but then he’d just casually slip in a sentiment like it doesn’t matter if I get shot. When he’d told Jason that the Court had murdered him until he was used to it, he had not been kidding in the slightest. Jason had nightmares about that moment when he’d done it, shot Dick right between the eyes, but once he’d come back Dick hadn’t treated a bullet to the head as any more serious than an unexpected groin shot in training. He’d whined about washing the brain matter out of his hair instead, which was both comforting (Jason hadn’t hurt him, he was fine), and seriously disturbing.

Dick was prowling around the edges of Jason’s apartment, now flipping over Jason’s books and running his hands over the furniture. That had nothing to do with Talon training and everything to do with Dick being restless and tactile. “None of us exactly like it when you get hurt,” Jason said.

“But -“

But nothing. Healing factors or not, you didn’t let people get shot or stabbed or beaten just because it was easier. “But he’s not going to treat you like the Owls did. End of story. Wear the damn bullet-resistant gear. And stop messing with my things.”

Dick blinked and stopped. The idea that Jason might agree with Bruce seemed to have taken him aback. “It really doesn’t matter if I get hurt a bit,” he said, more tentatively.

“You’re not talking about getting hurt a bit,” Jason said. “You’re talking maybe taking bullets to somewhere important.” Like the head. “You still feel pain, right?”

“Yeah. But I don’t get injured. It doesn’t matter.”

Jason ached to throw something heavy at his head, but he wouldn’t insult his copy of Pride and Prejudice by throwing it at someone unworthy. Besides, physically hurting Dick for not falling into line would kind of undermine the point. He settled for saying, “It matters, you dumbass. You still deserve not to be in pain. We keep telling you you’re still a human being.”

Dick looked faintly abashed by that. “I know I’m a person, Jay,” he said.

“Then don’t treat yourself like a meatshield,” he snapped. “Wear. The damn. Bullet-resistant gear.”

“I’ll think about it,” Dick said. “If you let me sign your cast.”

“On second thought I’d rather you get shot.”

They ended up in a scuffle - one in which Jason’s bad arm mysteriously went untouched and unjarred. And yet somehow Dick managed to scribble a big pink heart on the cast anyway.

---

It was still dark when Tim got back from patrol. He flicked on the light in the kitchen without thinking about it, intent on finding something, anything, to eat, and jumped when he heard a pained yelp from near the table. “Sorry,” Tim said. “I didn’t realise you were in here.”

“It’s okay,” Dick said, grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I didn’t realise it was dark.”

He’d been reading, Tim saw. Just whiling the early morning away with a novel and a cup of coffee he’d no doubt dumped four teaspoons of sugar into, the sort of downtime which was essentially his substitute for sleep. And - “No makeup?” Tim asked. Normally Dick reapplied it after he washed up after patrol, and joked that it was a good thing he couldn’t get zits anymore. (The first time Dick had said that, Tim had nearly had a heart attack, then mumbled something about Talonisation being a terrible acne treatment. Dick had laughed anyway.)

“I’m visiting the others tomorrow. They’re more comfortable with me when I don’t wear it.”

‘The others’ were the Talons they had retrieved from the labyrinth. A lot of them were dangerously insane or totally loyal to the Court. They were locked up as securely as they could be without freezing them. Cobb was among them. Several had committed suicide. But there were still eight survivors (not counting Dick) in varying states of poor mental health and trauma, who had been, for lack of a better word, cooperative. The psychiatrists Bruce had engaged hoped they might…improve. Normality wasn’t something they were aiming for. Functioning as beings independent of any masters, maybe.

It was a good thing they had plenty of time for that, Tim thought. That said, nobody could deny that some of them had shown improvement. Two of them had even agreed to help Bruce and Tim with their efforts to find a cure, and provided all the samples and scans Tim asked for.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Dick said. “The Little Guy picked a name.”

The Little Guy was the oldest of the Talons showing signs of psychological recovery, and also the smallest. He couldn’t remember the name he’d been born with, and the nameplate on his coffin had been damaged. Dick had set out a website of names for him to pick from, and Tim had heard him listening to the impersonal text-to-speech readout more than once. He would have read it himself, no doubt, but at best guess it had been more than a hundred years since he’d read anything and he hadn’t been very good at it back when he was alive.

“What’s he chosen?”

“Cameron,” Dick said. “Bruce is getting him some real documentation. We’ll fill in a birthday later.”

Unmasked, most of the Talons looked young. If you could see past the unnatural shade of their skin and the black veins (and Tim was trying very hard), their healing factors kept them fresh-faced. Even the ones who had been turned closer to their mid-twenties, like Dick, looked younger than their bodies were. Most of them were far older than Alfred, and would continue to look about Jason’s age until a cure was found. That might not be for years. It wouldn’t do to fill in the birthdates on any documentation yet, unless the identity was meant to be temporary.

“Going to celebrate?”

“Naturally. Want me to save you some cake? Alfred made it, and I know you were planning to stop by and ask for volunteers again.”

“Depends. What else were you planning?”

What he’d learned about the Talons had been in equal measures sad and scary. Damian had described their ’living’ arrangements; when Tim worried that the survivors spent too much time in their cells, he tried to remember that just having a cell was a substantial upgrade for them, and too much stimulation would probably be as bad as too little. The only recreation they had been allowed while the Owls had them were their missions. Other than that, they had been stuck in their coffins.

Once released, they’d done very little but sit in their cells awaiting instructions. When none came, they took to training. And, when they were done with that, they mostly sat in their cells some more.

Dick was the healthiest, mentally, and the most adjusted to modern life. By far. No contest. And for all he’d only been an active Talon for a few weeks, they accepted him as one of their own. He went to visit them at least every other day, to talk to (at) them and try to convince them to do things other than train and stare blankly at the walls.

His greatest success thus far had been a little garden of pot plants in the corner of the Talons’ heavily surveilled common area. One of them had begun caring for the plants within a day, and two months later she’d started answering to her name again: Liza. Recently, the Talon named John had started helping her with the watering.

Today, Dick said, “We’re watching movies.”

“Oh god,” Tim said. “Are you still working your way through Disney?”

“Nah. Pixar now.” He smiled. “Disney was last month.”

It finally clicked in Tim’s head. Dick was treating the Talons like he’d once treated Damian. All this persistent, patient, deliberate cheerfulness? The carefully planned time together? That was how he’d won over Damian, and now he was trying it on the Talons as well.

He just wanted Dick to be healthy again, and not a Talon. He didn’t like the idea of Dick adopting a bunch of Talon brothers and sisters. He still didn’t trust them entirely. They were all still suicide risks. They were going to hurt Dick.

But he had to admit, they were also helping. When Dick was focused on helping the Talons who he was capable of helping, he wasn’t going crazy over the impairment of his civilian life. Dick always needed something to do. It would be selfish and cruel for Tim to ask him not to try and help the others. Not to mention it wouldn’t work. They’d just got to a point where Tim didn’t even have to try to meet Dick’s eyes when he was out of his contacts.

What low standards he had these days. He wasn’t going to leave it there, though. “Will you be free for patrol afterwards?” he asked. “I could use some company.”

"Not afterwards," Dick said, with audible regret. "The day after, though, I'd love to."

Tim smiled.

---

She met Dick at dusk, on a tall rooftop in Amusem*nt Mile. Foot traffic was starting to pick up through the area, and the neon lights of Haly’s Circus were powering on. He’d come as Dick tonight, same as he had for the past three nights, jacket zipped up right under his chin and hands in thick gloves. That sort of clothing looked less out-of-place now, in chilly fall weather, than the long sleeves and thin gloves Dick had been forced to wear during summer had.

No brisk climb up the fire escape and no cold river breeze was going to bring colour back into his face, though, not even under the makeup. Bruce and Tim were still working on it, and on all the stuff Damian had brought in from the labyrinth. They’d brought in more people to help, too, and they were making progress. One day they’d be able to get Dick back to human-normal. It would probably be a few years, they said.

“Hey,” Barbara said.

“Hey,” Dick replied.

He hoisted himself up on the railing next to her. It was nice just to be near him, no matter what they were here for. Hypothetically here for, anyway. Every night for the past week, they’d just sat and watched the circus instead. Or, more accurately, people going to and from the circus.

“Are we going to go in tonight?” Barbara asked.

Dick looked out over at the lines starting to form in front of the circus’ various attractions. It was still too early for much to be going on under the Big Top. “Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know.”

It was progress. Three days ago, all he’d said was “no.”

When Barbara had told him the details of how he got to the Court, he’d taken it better than she expected. He’d worked most of it out for himself. She’d said Raya Vestri drugged him, and he’d nodded sadly. She’d said Bryan Haly had been in contact with the Owls, and he accepted it.

As she’d expected, it had been Haly Sr’s actions that hurt him worst. He’d been clinging to the hope that Haly Sr hadn’t known. When she’d told him, he’d shot to his feet, facial expression closing down, and then walked off and refused to talk to her any more that afternoon. Cass told her later that Dick had trained for twenty-four hours solid and then shut himself in his room at the Manor for another night. When he’d come out, he hadn’t said anything about it. He still flinched when someone called him by his surname.

And then Haly’s Circus had come back to Gotham. Dick had immediately said he wanted to go, to talk to Raya Vestri and Bryan Haly, but once he was at the gate he’d frozen up. Barbara had talked him onto a rooftop, somewhere he could gather his courage, but even three days later he hadn’t gathered enough.

“It’ll come back again if you can’t face it this week,” Barbara said, without turning to look at him. “Or you could find it.”

“No,” Dick said, “I’m not quite ready to leave Gotham. Travelling’s kind of weird right now. Have you seen my makeup bag?”

“Bag? It’s more like a cart.”

He sighed comically. “I can’t even get on a plane with it.”

Dick might joke, but it was true. He needed so much stuff to keep up the illusion that he hadn’t been Talon-ised. The inconvenience had kept him close to home, when Dick was used to travelling wherever and almost whenever he liked. Selfishly, Barbara liked that he was in town all the time, like when he was Batman, but she knew that eventually Dick would find a way to leave again. At least for a while.

She’d just have to enjoy having him here while she could.

On the path below them, children were shrieking with laughter. Music started up inside the big top, floating up towards them. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Dick frown. “It’s wrong,” he said.

“What is?”

“The kids.” He leaned forward over the railing. “This place is only here because it sold children to the Court. I don’t know how they can let any children in. It’s stupid. I know that they’re not going to do that anymore, but…”

This place. They. Still no mention of Haly and Haly’s crimes against him. He’d get there eventually. That was what they were up here for. “Do you want it closed down?” Babs asked. “We can do that. We don’t even have to mention the real reason why.” A couple of failed health and safety checks. A cancelled contract or two. Have a few of the performers offered better jobs elsewhere.

“I don’t know,” Dick said. “I just…I don’t know.” He looked at her with big blue eyes that were yellow behind the contact lenses. “It was my home.”

Barbara put her hand over his. “Another day?”

“Another day,” he said.

---

“I have something for you,” Bruce said, when Dick got back from changing and touching up his makeup for a night of patrol. Like him, Bruce was in costume but unmasked. Unlike him, Bruce wasn’t getting ready to go, but rather checking things on the computer.

“Ooh, a present?” Dick asked. “What it is? Is it fun?”

Bruce frowned at him, and moved a few things on his desk to reveal a tiny metal pellet. He slid it towards Dick, grave look in his eyes. “It’s not fun. It may be useful.”

Dick picked it up between thumb and forefinger. He was glad he was in Nightwing gear for this, because picking up things this size in his house gloves was a pain. Metal glinted against the textured fabric. Small as it was, the object was unmistakeably Bruce’s work. “What is it?” he asked again.

More shuffling things. Totally unnecessary shuffling of things. Dick knew when Bruce was trying not to show just how nervous he was. “It…it contains an agent that will disable your regeneration factor temporarily. It’s as close to a cure as we have so far. It stops regeneration past the horizon for revival after beheading. The mechanism in the implant will activate if your core temperature remains below a certain point for a certain amount of time. That’s up to you to set. If you want it.”

“But - if my regeneration stops while I’m frozen - “

“You’ll die. Yes.”

He’d die. If someone froze him, and he stayed frozen, he’d die. With this, he didn’t have to fear being trapped, eternally awake, in a refrigerated coffin.

He said, “This is the single best present I have ever received in my life. How are you going to implant it?”

Bruce looked annoyed. “It will have to be surgery. Otherwise your regeneration would push it out within minutes.”

That sucked. The idea of surgery sucked now, even worse than it had before. He healed neat cuts like those surgeons tended to use in seconds rather than minutes. They’d probably have to rip him open far wider than what would be neccessary on a regular person and lodge it in a natural cavity within his body. “Fine with me,” Dick said. “You do what you have to. I’m serious, Bruce, best present ever.”

He set the little device back down, and looked up into Bruce’s stony face. “You can’t say that,” Bruce said. “I - I made a means to kill you, Dick.”

“I know,” Dick said. “I don’t know how hard that must have been, but I don’t have to be afraid anymore, not of that, not with this. I couldn’t have made this myself. I’m grateful.” He was. He was so grateful it hurt.

Bruce looked away. He was ashamed of himself, Dick could see it. So he put a hand on Bruce’s shoulder, as reassuringly as he could. “How about I try not to get frozen in the first place?” he asked. “I’ll set the timer for a month. I’m assuming you’ve incorporated a tracker.”

A short, sharp nod.

“Thanks, Bruce,” Dick said. “I mean it.”

He didn’t press the issue. Bruce’s throat was working hard. If this kept up one or both of them would start crying. Or shouting at each other, which was the other thing they did when they got emotional, and that would ruin the moment.

“If you’re quite finished,” Damian said. The blank white lenses of his Robin mask glared up at him. “You promised to patrol with me tonight, Richard. Are you quite ready?”

Dick laughed and put on his mask. “I’m ready for anything, Damian. Nightwing always is."