Chapter Text
There are few things, Dick thinks, that are more unpleasant than waking up feeling like he’d been stuffed into a sausage skin three times too small for his body to actually fit in, but this is definitely not unfamiliar territory.
Sometimes, he thinks that if he hadn’t accepted Bruce’s offer, maybe he’d be less likely to be thrown through an alternate dimension simply because he was trying to save Jaybird from getting killed.
Again.
With a groan, Dick rolls out of bed, surprised to land on the floor without a wobble. Running a hand through his hair, Dick looks down at himself. Yep. Limbs intact… if a bit hidden by too big clothes. Maybe slightly too small for Bruce or Jay, but he couldn’t fit in Tim’s clothes, even at midget-size.
Looking up, Dick takes a moment to assess where he is. He’s not Tim - whose memory had always been terrifyingly exceptional - or Jason, whose childhood had often relied on his memory to avoid getting jumped - so it takes him a moment.
Bunk beds, he thinks. Eight in a room for sixteen kids, half of which were empty already despite the late hour. They’re slightly rusted, the top bunk wobbling dangerously on one as a breeze blows through a cracked window pane. An orphanage. He’d been to so many in his youth after his parents died that they’d all blurred together, but he recognized this one.
The last one he’d been to before he’d been picked up by Bruce, in fact. Dick takes a moment, looks back down at his hands.
Time travel.
Time. Travel.
Dick takes a deep breath. If he opens his mouth to swear, he’s not going to stop until someone fucking knocks him out.
Nine years old. Nine fucking years old and whatever son of a bitch that dropped him here couldn’t have put him at least a few months earlier? Crossing his legs, he forces himself to calm down.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Five repetitions later, and Dick is slightly calmer, though his hands tremble with the force of his emotions. He knows that he can do… incredible damage. Immense damage, even. One wrong move and Dick Grayson could completely mangle the timelines forever. Hell, he could possibly just disappear in a space-time anomaly if he wasn’t careful, or if he trusted the wrong people.
Including Bruce. Biting his lower lip, Dick looked up at the bunk he was residing under with a slight scowl.
He remembered how weird Bruce was in the early years. Staying out late, spending all of his time patrolling until he collapsed, his first fight with Supes… Rolling into the pillow, Dick groans quietly. He did not want to be there for that. Bruce’s paranoia and his own volatile temper had been enough, thanks. He thinks back to all the things he’s learned, to everything that’s been done, and makes a decision.
Back to fucking bed with him. He’d sleep, wake up at dawn or whenever, and then he’d check out what year it was and what kind of mess he was looking at.
Morning dawns cold, wet, and miserable.
Of course, it’s Gotham, so Dick just bundles up in an extra-large jacket and asks Matron Marie if he can go to the library for school stuff. Matron squints down at him, but after a long stare-off, she relents and snaps a band around his wrist, the lurid orange color notating his destination, name, and age.
Dick thinks, judging by her glare, she’s hoping he gets kidnapped.
“Thanks Matron,” he mumbles to her, and her expression slides into surprise. Oh. Right. He’d never thanked anyone for anything, not even B when he’d been nine. He’d just been a dick. His lips twitch slightly at the unintended joke, and he quickly rushes out before she can check him for a fever.
Gotham doesn’t look too different, Dick thinks, for being another reality. He’d been hoping for hover cars or something, at least. Drat. None of the fun shit. He’s quick to make his way to the library, can feel how people judge him for his too-worn, too-big clothes, and when some guys look like they’re ready to get a bit grabby, he narrows his eyes in a glare. He’s a small kid, slim and underfed, so he expects them to be more amused by his attitude.
Instead, they back off. Dick doesn’t want to think about what he probably looks like for them to actually back off, so he doesn’t and rushes inside the library instead. It’s warm inside, and he untenses, sighing in relief as the heat slides over his body, easing the cold and wet sensation over his skin. He instinctively looks for Barb, but nearly smacks his face with a hand. Stupid - she was probably at best twelve, if he was still nine. Sloppy of him. Shaking his head, he checks to see what the computer situation is looking like.
They still looked like obsolete bricks, and he’s pretty sure someone’s using a damn Nokia phone, so that definitely put him somewhere in the mid-90’s. Iphone was a halcyon dream and he doubted Android had even become a thing yet.
Heh. Made tech easy to crack. He finds a nice, secluded corner, and quickly hops into a computer the moment it’s free, little more than a bored glance being sent his way to show interest in his activities.
If it had been Bruce, he’d have swanned over in a hot second. Dick cracks his fingers and gets to work, quickly figuring out exactly what kind of tech he was dealing with.
(Tim might have been the gadgeteer genius, but Dick was Bruce Wayne’s first protegé. He’d known damn well how to hack, and he’d kept up with the times in the Titans. Seriously. Cyborg had been part of the Titans, why had he been the better hacker?)
It doesn’t take him long to get what he’s after, and after scrambling his trail and leading it - somewhat conveniently - to a warehouse he knew Joker had been camping out around when he was a kid, Dick abandons the computer and skips over to the front desk.
“Hi!” He greets, pulls all his charm up front, and the librarian gives him an amused look.
“I know that look,” Estelle says, and he beams brighter. “What trouble are you looking for?”
“I’m looking for a history book,” he says straight-faced. “For stuff going on in the last twenty years. Travelling in a circus doesn’t make for a consistent education,” Dick deadpanned at her. The woman snorts, but her fingers flip through the cards efficiently, and Dick decides, the moment he’s able to, he’s going to bribe Bruce into upgrading the library.
Ugh.
Catalogues.
“Aisle 14, nonfiction section. It should be called a Modern History of Gotham and the Effects on US Politics by Jones Esther,” Estelle says, grinning at him. “If your little legs can reach that high.” He wrinkles his nose at her and bolts off, refusing to dignify her with a response.
Adults.
The adult wrinkles his nose again, and wonders if his child’s body is already affecting his mind. He hopes not, because he couldn’t afford his childish temper to get the better of him. Carefully, he eases the book from the shelf and finds somewhere secluded to read. He has half a mind to just sneak up to the rafters and keep reading after dark, but he needs to pretend that he’s a kid for one more day. Judging by the date on the computer - if the computer’s anything accurate to what he remembers, he has at least one more day before Bruce notices him and then tries to adopt him.
It’d be easy, he thinks, to tell Bruce everything and trust him to handle it. But… He bites his lip as he thinks about Jason, about the hushed, almost apologetic way Jason had confessed about why Bruce had thrown him out, the way Tim had looked, constantly riding his exhaustion to its limits.
Dick was tired of everyone paying for B’s issues. He knew B had been trying, but even Dick had limits.
“Sorry B,” Dick mumbles, trying to ignore how the words felt like a betrayal. “I’ll show up for you soon. Just hold on a little longer.”
He knew Tim wasn’t anywhere near B’s radar, being barely old enough to walk, but Jay… maybe he’d find a way to get Jay out of his unworthy parents’ arms and into B’s.
Least he could do, to make up for living up to his nickname the first time around. Burying his nose into his book, Dick shoves all of his stray thoughts away, instead digging in deeper to make sure he wasn’t going to accidentally start some kind of world war.
That’d be inconvenient.
Dick stayed a whole week at the orphanage. He wasn’t idle, of course, but he knew how this kind of stuff worked from previous attempts to run away.. If he was acting strange and then someone looked into it, someone would follow up, and while he doubted it would be Bruce, he knew damn well it would be trouble. Steadying his breathing, Dick makes sure to take a look around the other boys, all of them sleeping fitfully on their bunks.
He has a narrow chance of escape - even a week wasn’t enough to make Dick as good as he used to be with his body - some of the more acrobatic flips he used to do were easier, of course, given that he was now way more flexible, but that was only a minor thing in comparison to his lack of height. He’d have to be careful scaling buildings. He’d stolen enough cash to pay for any news he needed, but he was hopefully not going to need it.
A quiet, guilty squirm fills his insides, and he looks away from the sleeping boys, closing his eyes. Bruce… Bruce needed him.
(The quieter, wiser part of him that had insisted he leave for Blüdhaven reminded him that Bruce needed a therapist. Maybe a few years would give him the ability to do that. But he wouldn’t hold his breath.)
Hopping out of the window, Dick carefully eases it back into place and takes off into the night. From what he remembered, the Court of Owls had a base both here and in Blüdhaven; but he wasn’t going anywhere near Bane’s main hub until he was a lot better trained and more capable of holding himself in a fight.
The Court is about as well-guarded as he remembers, that is to say very, so he cautiously sneaks in, silently slipping through the cracks in their tightly wound security. One thing he could say was that his small size made it much harder to see him, and he’d made sure to buy some good, soft-soled sneakers meant for climbing in his size so they wouldn’t squeak.
It’s ironic, he thinks with a dry smile, that all of B’s boys would eventually end up getting trained by assassins.
Shame it took him this long to get there. (No, Deathstroke didn’t count.)
He manages to make it undetected into what he recalls being the council room, tucks his feet in and pretends to be a statue with the gargoyles as the assembly files in, filling the room to the brim with silent, masked strangers. Some he recognizes from memory - others he thinks are from the old guard, dead before Dick had ever any reason to touch them. Their beaked masks are pointed and sharp, metal gleaming in the light. He knows it’s just for vanity’s sake, the collection of elders settling down as someone is set in front of them. Dick doesn’t quite peer out at them, but he is curious - he can see a mask of the person he thinks is his great-grandfather (however loosely the term applied to the man who tried to convert and kill him.)
“Seal the chamber,” someone says, and Dick can hear how it grinds tightly shut, two burly guards - enhanced Talon agents - standing in place.
Could he take them? He weighs his options silently, looking down as they stare at the quivering man in the centre, and then palms the knife in his hand. He didn’t want to kill anyone, not in the slightest, but he wasn’t going to get a better chance than this, and he’d always been a bit… flexible on the no-kill rule.
He’d killed the Joker, after all, and he’d damn near killed Tony.
“Agent. You kneel before us, accused of treason,” The one with the most impressive mask speaks first. “You attempted to secret your son away from us, to take the child to our enemies in the League of Assassins.” Dick’s brow bounces upwards, and he pays more attention. Both of them sucked, but in his opinion, the League did suck slightly less, if only because they didn’t lobotomize their soldiers into being impossible tanks.
But that was probably because they used the Pit instead.
A little bit of irritation crawls over his skin at the reminder of Jason, once-blue eyes green and glittering with madness when his temper took hold. He listens to the proceedings with half an ear, waiting for an opening and checking around himself while he tries to make sure he’s not yet been caught.
Tuning back in, Dick can see the woman cowering in terror as the vote is cast overwhelmingly in favor of her execution, and Dick frowns again, feels a little uncomfortable at the fact that he was actually actively thinking about this.
He’d killed the Joker because that son of a bitch had deserved it, but he hadn’t ever touched an innocent.
And then the reminder of where he was slaps him in the face.
Some people were innocent here, surely. The kids, definitely. But the adults were a different story. The only adults that stayed human were those whose intelligence was too valuable to keep over converting them into a modified super-soldier like Deathstroke. She was probably as valuable an agent as his great-grandfather, if not more so, if she’d been on active duty and not stuck in stasis.
His conscience would definitely still bother him, but if he wanted an in, there wasn’t a better chance.
Dick grabs his knife, waits for them to sentence her to death, and jumps down to do the deed himself.
William watches in silence, bored out of his mind. He knew how this rigmarole would end. It was painfully obvious what the result would be, but the Court was always meticulous, always took the time to try and hold a trial, especially for a true Talon, one who had shed their meagre mortality for the greatness of Barbatos’ blessing.
He’s expecting something simple. An axe to the neck, or perhaps a knife to the forehead.
He’s not expecting a small black blur to dive from above the rafters - and what a security breach that is - and bury a knife through her neck with all the brutal efficiency of a monster. The little figure is faster than anyone in the room, the blade jerking to a side and making her drop limply to the floor. Blood pools on the ground, but it’s a clean cut, straight through her spinal cord, which would take precious time to fix, and would leave a nice blank spot in her memory when she was revived for future use. Nobody dares move, even the elders stunned to silence as the boy - and it is a boy, tiny slip of a thing - removes his knife and cleans it on her uniform. He picks her corpse up by the scruff of her neck, and drags it, slow and careful, until he’s climbing the steps.
Heading for him. William keeps still, watching as the body thumps against the steps in a slow, steady tread of bloody feet, the knife in his other hand as he draws as close to level with William as he can. The boy presents him with the kill, dropping her at his feet.
Brilliant blue eyes fixate on him, and the boy’s head tilts, birdlike.
“It’s not polite to make your blood wait for you,” the boy says evenly. William feels a cold chill crawl up his spine as the boy stares at him. “It’s been months since mother and father fell.” William kneels down, tilts that soft skin up, his tan skin glowing faintly in the light of the torches illuminating them. There is no warmth in his eyes, a small mouth set in a slight frown. He is not amused, his own flesh and blood, and had sought him, had come to him with a body as a warning.
Already, he had shown his gift, his ability to enter their stronghold’s most protected space without being caught, and the boy would likely only grow more skillful. William cups the boy’s face and caresses away a splatter of blood that had caught on such cherubic features.
He was… He was perfect.
“That is my sin alone, little grandchild of mine,” He murmurs, wondering how much Haly’s had told this boy, how much he had spent of his life in the circus working to meet his great-grandfather.
He was a blessing that William would not turn down, not when he thought all his blood had perished or been snatched up by the unworthy. Blue eyes fixate on his hand, but the boy does not bite, untensing slowly as he registers no danger.
Clever boy.
His grandson was a true agent of the Court. Quiet and focused - uncannily so, eyes staring over the rim of his drink to watch a spar below him, soft mouth pursed into a calculating frown.
“My Grayson,” William says, and the child turns from the spar to watch him too, head tilting to a side. “Do you desire to fight?” He asks, and an unsettling blue fixates on him.
“Foolish question,” the boy says evenly, turning back to his food. He’d proven himself already, and so the choicest bits of beef had already been served to him, along with a mouthwatering plate of butter-roasted vegetables and succulent potatoes. The boy wrinkles his nose at the meal, and William reaches out to pet the top of his head. Richard lets him, before shaking his head and refusing him.
“Does the food not satisfy you?” He asks, and the boy gives him an unimpressed look.
“This is a meal for spoiled elites, not a meal for an athlete.” William’s brow rises. “And if you say that I am not an athlete, grandfather, I will stab you. This is a meal for the sedentary. Fix it.” The boy stands up abruptly and abandons his plate, looking visibly displeased by the whole thing. William looks at the food, and then stands up to follow.
“What would you eat, then, my child?” He asks, little Grayson already heading for the training grounds with an intent expression on his pretty face.
“Light vegetables, boiled,” The boy says evenly. “Salads, fresh. Lean protein, not that fatty… thing you were trying to ruin my body with. I had enough of poorly-made food destroying my well-maintained diet while in the orphanage, thank you,” Richard says icily, and William chuckles at his grandson’s temper.
“Of course my little Grayson,” William says, amused. Figures the boy would be so particular, if he had been aiming for the Court to be his to serve. It was no surprise the boy was so offended that the Court had insulted him. “Where do you wish to go?” Richard arches an amused brow at him, and then snorts.
“I’m not so foolish as to not know my way around, grandfather,” Richard says pointedly. “I know where the training room is, and I’ve made do with sub-par equipment for long enough. I fully intend on dealing with my lack of supplies.” William bites back the words he wishes to say, allows a faint smile to curl his lips and draws back. How entertaining this child was, cold and calculating beyond even the greatest Talon’s hopes, already primed for a life here.
“Will you take flexibility training?” He asks, and the boy glances back at him. “I haven’t seen your range of motion for myself, my grandson, but surely you have higher than average skill.”
“I am not perfect,” The boy says a bit icily, spearing him with a glare. “Why stop when I can be more?” William smiles wickedly at the boy, a shiver of delight running up his spine at the perfect answer. It was almost too perfect, but William had been assigned to take care of this boy specifically regardless since he’d dropped a kill at the Talon’s feet. He’d made it personal with that action, and William did so love to take his time and train a successor that would be worth the time of day. The two walk together to the weapons room, and once inside, the boy makes a beeline for the slimmer escrima sticks and shorter blades. He twists them this way and that, almost as though he was greeting an old friend.
Skillful, but it was clear he was more familiar with the smaller sticks than the blades, and he tucks the blades back, looks at him with a slightly challenging stare.
“Difficult to kill someone with those,” William notes.
“A snapped neck is the same no matter who does it,” The boy notes quietly. “And I’d be surprised to see someone survive a crushed windpipe.”
So he had killed with a weapon before. William notes that, wonders who could have been his unlucky target, and reaches out to pat the top of the boy’s head. Blue eyes flash in warning, and he backs off this time, has a feeling the boy was less amused with him now for some unknown reason. The boy was a vindictive little thing, wild and vicious and yet - perfectly in control. It was such a complex weave of emotions and concepts for a boy William hadn’t known for more than twenty-four hours.
“You are a particularly demanding child, for one of the Court,” William notes, and Richard’s blue eyes narrow into a glare.
“You’re also a bit too alive for a dead man,” The boy spits back sharply, the words pricking at his annoyance. Clearly the boy was unhappy. “You are too - too indulgent,” Richard says at last, angry and trembling as he looks at William at last. “Is this all it takes to impress the Court? Any properly trained Talon can do as I did and yet -” The boy cuts himself off, and scowls deeper. “Pathetic,” Richard hisses angrily, and William blinks as he realises the boy’s thought processes.
“You think us soft,” he muses, and angry eyes glitter at him.
“I think this is despicable. Treating me as though I’m some kind of prodigal child, stepping lightly around me - I came to become what father had once told me of. To be the blade of Gotham, and here we are, pathetically dancing around the subject of my ascension to the Court. I didn’t come to look pretty, I came to be trained.”
He’s angry, a temper on him that lesser men might have found amusing. William knew it was anything but. The boy was bone-deep angry, his expectations having been demolished by their decision to ease him into the life of a Talon.
“It was decided by the court to allow you to relax, to ease into routine,” William says after a moment. Cold blue glared at him.
“If I wanted to be coddled like a child, I’d not have come here at all. Either make me useful or I will leave,” Richard spits, shaking with anger. William’s brow quirks up, surprised.
“Who do you wish to kill?” He wonders, and Richard stiffens. Right on the money, then. For all his skill, he was still a child, so easy to read.
“It’s none of your concern,” The boy says stiffly, arms crossing as he looks away. “I’m going to train, if nobody is willing to train me.” William’s fingers reach out to grasp the back of an oversized shirt instead. The boy breaks his grip, but stops at William’s expression.
“My Grayson,” William kneels down to meet the boy’s eyes. “Let us outfit you in better clothing first.” Keen eyes stare at him, before he sighs and nods.
“Fine,” Richard concedes in ill grace, tiny fingers plucking at his shirt, and he settles a hand against the boy’s spine. What an angry child. A true, proud child of William’s. He could see how much of a handful this boy would be for anyone else.
His boy.
Richard’s hands press against his face, and unseen by William, a slow, dangerous smile curls his lips up.
Too easy.
Dick spits out blood, wiping his hand over the back of his mouth with a grimace. Another cocktail of drugs to make him better. Despite his best attempts otherwise, Dick’s mouth is stained with the taste of copper, but he simply grits his teeth and stands up on shaky feet.
William is watching him, a golden-gauntleted hand glimmering with their razored points. He’s been in full Talon gear since he’d started training Dick, and the boy would admit that in full, the regalia was definitely an impressive sight. Black and brassy gold with a little splash of red accents… Put the red to blue and he’d want it. A huff, and he looks at the downed body, the boy staring at his latest opponent.
Dick had never really questioned the no-kill rule, the abhorrence that Bruce had felt for it was enough of a tell to ensure he avoided it, even if he was a little… flexible about it.
(Dead Joker, anyone?)
But now, with dozens of bodies on his hands, staring at his latest victim, Dick wasn’t sure what he was supposed to feel. Was he supposed to be upset? Angry?
Damn this child’s body. He felt things so strongly now, so viscerally. His temper still took him by surprise, still made life difficult, and he twitches slightly, looks away from the body as it cools down in full. A sigh, and he taps his fingers to his cheek to wake himself, looking at his great-grandfather.
Richard Cobb. William had insisted on it, but Dick wasn’t happy. The only last name he wanted to change to was Wayne, if that. He’d remembered how Bruce had sat him down, awkwardly tried to tell him he had the right to choose what name he picked, that he was okay to stay a Grayson, if he wanted to.
Dick had stayed a Grayson, but now, he wanted to be a Wayne.
“Acceptable, Richard,” William says, and he hates how his body reacts to the praise, forcing down a blush and smile. He doesn’t want this man’s approval, he doesn’t want this man’s acceptance.
He was here to put the Court down before it could do more damage, before they could seize too much of Gotham and turn back the years of good work that Bruce had already poured into the city.
But the child who had always begged for validation from the self-styled Dark Knight was still there, still craved every little good job and you did well from his grandfather.
It’d never been something he’d gotten over. Even after he’d left for Blüdhaven, had founded the Teen Titans, had become part of the Justice League, had been Slade’s main rival…
That craving for validation had still existed, and in the end, he’d found himself craving it, pained and desperate for something like praise, even before he was caught up in whatever sent him here.
God. He follows after William without bothering to memorise the route - he knows this place already like the back of his hand - still thinking about them. He hoped Jay wasn’t being reamed for whatever happened to him - it was bad enough that he kept getting the short end of the fucking stick after Joker had blown him up.
Closing his eyes, Dick takes a deep breath in.
Well. Time to face the vipers. Rather than entering the training room, Dick hangs back, stretches himself out as he waits for whatever new experiment they were planning on for him. They liked to think they were being clever, but Dick didn’t particularly care what they thought. He knew roughly what they did given that he’d read their rigorous experiments from top to bottom, but he was an anomaly. He’d started as part of Haly’s, not part of the Court, so they’d had to rearrange his training to compensate for the difference in his combat style.
He wasn’t a brute, he didn’t favour their more brutal methods. He took after Bruce in many ways, preferring the shadows and subtle manipulation over outright combat. A good fight was one he didn’t have to get his hands dirty with.
With a soft sigh, Dick looks up at William when the man exits, the man’s body looser and more relaxed when he exits than when he’d entered.
“You’ve been recognized,” William says, smiling wider. “They’ve accepted you as ours. It will take some time to tailor your enhancements, but our training will be as it always has been. Once the enhancements are ready, they will call for you.”
Dick arches an unimpressed brow. “If they try to take any part of my brain out of my body I will destroy them,” Dick drawls, and William’s lips twitch slightly.
“You sound so sure they will try,” William says, ruffling his hair. Dick shakes his head, puffs his cheeks out in a display of childishness that makes William laugh to see it.
“I’m not saying they won’t… but I want them to be aware that I’ll know if they try.” William laughs at him again, but nudges him along with a warm smile.
“You’re cute, my Grayson,” William says fondly, and Dick’s brow twitches.
“I am not cute, grandfather,” Dick says, irritated by his amusement. William ruffles his hair again, and he ducks, scowling.
“I have only just come into your life. Allow an old man to feel nostalgic.”
Dick shoots him a murderous look, but all William does is laugh at him.
Dick stares up at the ceiling and briefly, he wonders if he could get the name of the sadist that injected him with the cocktail of drugs for the day. He’d carefully tracked the days - it’d been six months since he’d joined them, and as William had promised, he had been trained, his days filled with working himself to the bone, beaten and starved and forced to work in inhumane conditions, with inhumane experiments filled in whenever he didn’t have a broken bone or a dislocated part of his body.
Dick had thought he was flexible, but after six months of this, Dick could fold himself like a goddamn pretzel in a wheelie-bin and still have room to stretch.
Total plus.
Less so was their attempts to control his mind, make him compliant and subservient to the Court’s will. The first time they tried, he had broken one of their operator’s arms.
The second got a scalpel to the throat.
And the third had been very nearly lobotomized with his own tools.
They’d stopped after that., but Dick didn’t want to let his guard down.
He couldn’t be sure that he still hadn’t been modified - they were good for a damn good reason - but at least, Dick knew his brain was still in one piece.
A knock, and Dick palms a slim knife into his hands, ready to throw it as fast as his fingers could move.
“Enter,” he says, still shaking a little from whatever had been injected into his body. William pokes his head in, and he relaxes minutely, grip softening around the knife, though he holds it close regardless. His grandfather eyes his tightly clutched knife with amusement.
“Are you stable?” William asks, and Dick stands up, slips his feet into the soft-soled shoes of his uniform.
“Enough,” Dick says with a shrug, hiding his wince with practised ease. “Who requested me?” He asks, and William gives him a look.
“You should rest. A weapon is not at its best if it is damaged.” William chides.
“It’s fine,” Dick dismisses. “I’ll be fine once I’m moving.” And as he bounces slightly in place, Dick knows it’s true, and can already feel the pain easing away from his tense shoulders and the stiffness of his back. William eyes him, and Dick wonders, a bit more amused, why he was feeling so fond of this man when - as far as he remembered - the man had always been a Talon first, had tried to kill Bruce, and even him, with Luthor’s information when he’d refused to become a Talon in his first lifetime.
Another crooked smirk, and he gestures lightly, suggesting they get moving. William rolls his eyes, but lets him duck under his arm and get moving, the boy bobbing lightly up and down as he heads towards the councilroom.
William catches up to him, and he looks up, wondering if he’ll be taller in this lifetime, or if he’d go back to his comfortable 5’10” height.
He didn’t mind being shorter than B and Jay, honest.
… Okay, he did a little bit.
A whole ass ton, don’t kid yourself, Grayson , Dick chides himself, the teen following behind his grandfather dutifully.
He recognizes the figure waiting in the hall. The lean silhouette of Deathstroke isn’t one Dick would ever forget, not after the man had all but offered him his mantle. Dick was considerably too young for Deathstroke to be here for anything regarding Blüdhaven, and god only knew how old his kids were here. A slow blink, and he looks up at the man properly, waits expectantly.
“... in private, if you’d be so kind,” Wilson finishes, his eyes sliding over William to rest on Dick. “You want my partner to be this kid?” He sounds mildly unimpressed, and Dick wonders what kind of job they were taking that he’d need to have a kid tagging along.
“Is this a school, daycare, or juvie that we’re infiltrating?” Dick says, frowning at the Talon member who is standing at the desk. Deathstroke’s head tilts - surprise, he’d bet. Or amusement. Deathstroke wasn’t the type to let age fool him.
“Gotham’s Home for Troubled Youth, specifically,” The agent says without missing a beat, a quiet praise of his intuition.
“I’m a little young for their usual attendees, since they take pre-teens and older,” Dick says, unimpressed. “Normally a kid my age would be stuffed in Arkham Hospital in max security if I did something to warrant that place.” Deathstroke is watching him with a wary sort of caution, amusement and surprise in the lines of his body.
“We should go into a secure office,” the agent suggests, and Dick shrugs, already walking towards the room he liked most when he was assigned to work.
“My office?” He asks, and the agent huffs.
“You’re being arrogant again.”
“Yeah, and you’re wasting time,” he says blithely. “My office.” Deathstroke huffs a laugh behind him, and the four of them enter. It’s an abandoned aviary, the once-empty nesting holes full of miniature computers, their unending whirring noises a good mask for any eavesdropping devices and a wicked bit of programming he’d done to keep everything confidential. He takes the folder from the unresisting agent’s hands, quickly flipping through it all to memorise the details. They’re being hired by -
“I hope you understand that Lexcorp is likely going to lose a lot of stock in the next week,” Dick notes aloud. “So we’re going to have to get in, grab this mystery package, and get out to be paid in less than three days.”
Even with the whir of technology, Dick could swear he’d hear a pin drop if he let one go now.
“How do you know that?” Deathstroke kneels down to meet him face to face, and Dick arches a brow, smiles slowly in a way that he knows makes him look dangerous, even with his youthful profile. Leaning in, he speaks, just low enough for them to hear.
“Believe me, Mr. Wilson, I’m not as stupid as any child you’ve had the misfortune of dealing with. I keep track of the investments in my Court’s city.” Pulling back, Dick relishes in the stunned silence of the mercenary, offers the folder back. “If I were you, it’d be smarter to take it for yourself and sell it to the highest bidder. Lexcorp’s market shares are about to drop with the new Wayne Enterprises’ release of some of their more… lucrative hardware, and Lexcorp’s software is going to be out of date. Q1 reveals are next week.”
He remembered this. He remembered how Bruce had damn near killed himself setting it up, and a light hack to Wayne Enterprises (including a convenient little marker to make it look like the Gotham Lexcorp address) had been enough to confirm it was in progress to release this week. Lexcorp had nothing nearly as good in the works yet, so he’d bet good money they’d go down in value for at least a few months.
He wished he was there for B, right now. B had always taken comfort in hugging him when he was working late nights, and Dick missed someone he trusted to hug without getting stabbed in the back. He so, so missed it.
Not enough to stop his goal of putting the Court down like the rabid animals they were, but enough. Maybe he could look for Jason. Baby Jay was only five, right now, but he’d already dropped off of the radar, and casual canvassing hadn’t yet let him find the boy. He could sweep in, be his little brother’s hero, and keep him safe at the same time. Win-win. Tuning in, Dick looks up at the
“The Court does not -” Dick rolls his eyes.
“Quit while you’re ahead. Lexcorp will send someone to the Home, and the Bat’ll send them packing. If they don’t realise they’re going to get stiffed out of the money, then it sucks to be them.” He eyes the folder. “Save it. We’d lose more money and my anonymity than we can afford.” Done with the conversation, Dick opens the door and disappears into the halls, knowing William will probably lecture him for exposing their internal workings, but he’s not of a mind to care.
Seeing Deathstroke was…
Jarring.
He’d always thought of the Court as a more self-isolated thing, strictly tied to the city of Gotham and their weird-ass god Barbatos than any loyalty to any outside influences. It was why he’d operated so strictly in this location. He didn’t like the idea that his information was wrong - because if they weren’t as self-isolated as he thought, he was going to be very fucking annoyed.
He fucking hated cultists.
Lost in his thoughts, he can’t help but respond to instinct when an unknown hand touches him.
Dislocate the hand, twist, engage the blade hidden in your wrist holster up and under the tender bit of the armpit to the artery -
“Fucking hell kid, are you just rabid?” Deathstroke’s voice keeps him from following through, and the child blinks away his instinctive reaction, stares down at the mercenary he’d seized so roughly, before he frowns, grip tightening briefly on both hand and arm. The blade under his chin tickles slightly, and he gives it a pointed look.
The knife retreats.
“Don’t approach me like that next time. I don’t like being touched,” Dick says in irritation, letting him go. He’d almost gotten him and it was a shame he’d been stopped. He’d looked forward to causing at least a little damage. He owed Deathstroke for hurting Jericho and Grant and Rose.
“You’re a feral rabbit, kid,” Deathstroke says, amused. Dick pulls a face at him.
“I have a name,” He says icily. “It’s Richard.” The mercenary holds his hands up, before wincing as his dislocated wrist pops back into place.
“Sorry, sorry, Richard,” Deathstroke says, his mask hiding the smirk on his punchable face. “Mind if we walk?” he asks, and Dick considers him.
“If you try to harm me, I’ll take off both of your hands,” the boy says at last. “I’m not in the mood to play games.” Deathstroke hums, but sticks his hands pliantly in his pockets.
“Better?” He asks, and Dick snorts.
“No.” He starts walking anyway. Slade'll follow.
Slade regards the lithe boy as the two walk side to side, and wonders if it’s arrogance or just confidence that fills this little killer. He’d heard through the grapevine, of course, about the Court of Owls having picked up a dangerous new member, but he’d just thought it was them blowing smoke.
This kid, Richard, was a whole lot more dangerous than he’d expected from intel. His eyes were an odd mix. Some of his eyes were blue, some were yellow, with very little green in between the two. Part of the experimentation they were doing? Slade felt… uncomfortable, actually, with the idea that they’d taken a child and were experimenting on him the same way he’d been experimented on.
Not that it hadn’t done him some good - the boy was already unnaturally fast, and with keen eyes and a sharp, razored wit that he couldn’t imagine on his own kids.
God bless Joey and Grant, but the boys were kids and dumb as bricks aside. They were normal kids. This Richard was many things, but normal was so far from one of them it was almost comical.
“How old are you, kid?” He asks, and Richard glances at him. It’s unnerving to see a look that would have been more fit on Adeline’s face on a child’s. They step out into open air, and after a quick sweep, he determines they’re alone.
“Ten years old. Or thereabouts,” He says indifferently, and something twists in Slade’s gut. Ten. What the hell kind of person did that to a kid? Slade knew he was wired differently, knew he could look at his own kids and feel indifferent about them, but even so, he’d never imagine putting a kid through this willingly.
“Bit young to be a killer for hire,” He says instead, gets another unreadable glance.
“Says the man with children,” Richard says mildly, and his hackles rise. He’d worked hard to keep his kids out of the spotlight, especially with how fucking nasty people could get when they thought themselves wronged. He was a shitty father, but not that shitty.
“How do you know about them?” He asks, a bit chilled. Those not-blue, not-yellow eyes look at him.
“I keep track of all the threats who come into my city,” Richard says simply. The boy reaches up, pulling him down until Slade falls to his knees, just close enough for him to whisper. “I know you have two boys, and an illegitimate girl named Rose. They average about eight years old, and Grant is an ungrateful pest, while Joseph bears the brunt of Adeline’s abuse alone. Your daughter Rose is still with her mother, though she’d prefer to literally be anywhere else.” Ice sluices down his spine, and he is stopped by the boy’s grip on his shirt. “The Court is lazy, but I don’t know if they are aware of the same things I am. I’ve done my research away from the Court’s walls as my information is one of my greatest assets and makes me a valuable tool - too valuable to end up like those who become nothing more than a mindless weapon.”
The tight knot in his stomach loosens.
“Are you sure you’re a kid?” He asks, and Richard laughs. It should be - it is - a beautiful sound, but the sound of it in this context is chilling.
“Sometimes I wonder,” Richard says, and isn’t that a fucking omen? “If you wish to take some advice from me, I would highly recommend you get your younger son out of there before your wife kills him.” A malicious smile, and the boy lets go. He’s too stunned to move an inch, torn between pulling away and dragging the kid closer to demand some fucking answers.
Slade is not a religious man, nor is he in any way easily alarmed - but what the fuck was this kid? He’d kept his family as tightly under wraps as he could, let alone his daughter - how the hell did this kid know -
“What do you want from me?” He asks, stomach twisting as the boy watches on with amusement.
“That’s for me to know, and you to find out,” Richard says, a wicked grin on his pretty face. He hops back a step, and tilts his head. “And just so you know, people don’t tend to think mercenaries would bring a kid to their job.”
That’s… true.
“I’m hardly equipped to be a parent.”
“Neither is 50% of this planet. And yet they have children anyways,” he points out. “Besides. Your eldest is already a failure. Might as well move on to the next one.” Richard shrugs, smiling widely.
Slade stares. “Are you… okay, kid?” He decides on asking, and Richard looks at him with all of the amusement a boy his age should not reasonably fucking posess.
“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not,” Richard says. “It’s not your problem right now. Consider this… a downpayment.”
“For what?” He wonders, and Richard’s smile widens.
“You’ll know, soon enough.”
God help him.
Dick isn’t surprised when his grandfather finds him, a moue of disappointment on the man’s face.
“You know of that man?” William wonders, and Dick hums.
“Yes.” When he offers no other answer, his grandfather’s eyes crinkle into a smile that doesn’t touch his lips.
“Will you explain how you know that man?”
“No.” Dick looks up, and his grandfather does laugh then. “It’s not my fault the Court doesn’t have intel.” His grandfather draws near, and he tenses slightly when William sits next to him, only to relax when the man does little more than throw an arm over his shoulder.
“I wonder - do you get your cleverness from your mother, or your father?” He wonders aloud, and Dick leans against his shoulder with a soft smile.
“Father would joke I got his curiosity, and mother’s silver tongue,” he says, eyes closing slightly as he leans into the touch. A talon-gauntleted hand strokes through his hair, sharp points skimming gently over the boy’s scalp and making him sigh happily. The soft strokes of the talons through his hair reminds him of an old, distant memory, from when Bruce had first started taking care of him, a hazy fever that had seen the man fussing incredibly over Dick’s frail self. The gentle drag of the sharp points reminds him of fingernails, and he gently pushes up into the touch, a needy cat in the face of affection.
“I can see both applying to you, little owlet,” William teases, and Dick hums sleepily. Now that he was alone, Dick could feel the pain coming back, smothering his body as he let himself rest. Of course, he’d never tell William that he was right, instead laying his head down in the man’s lap while William tends to him.
William and Alfred were pretty alike, Dick thinks, allowing himself to relax, even as he keeps the knife in his hands just in case. He likes William. He really likes William.
But William is a Talon first, well before he ever will be Dick’s grandfather. The boy lets his eyes close, and he feigns sleep, his breath dropping slowly as he waits - always waiting to see where his loyalty lies.
William looks down at him, the clawed hand still stroking the dark hair of the boy he’d thought forever lost to him. A brush, and he tucks a lock of hair behind an ear.
Logically, William knew he should be furious. He is a Talon, and his own progeny has embarrassed the Court, has shown a reserve of cunning and intuition that should have been kept behind closed doors. He should have kept their disputes inside the halls, away from outsiders and away from any would divide the Court.
So why then, did he feel such pride? This burning sensation of joy at the boy’s fierce independence, the way he looked so intensely at it all, folding the fabric of the world to his very whims? He watched the boy as he had maimed the doctors of the Court, how he had defended his own sovereign mind, and rather than reprimands, he had wanted to praise the child that lay in his lap now. Carefully, he lifts the boy into his arms, standing so he can move the blanket aside and tuck him beneath the sheets. Lowering his burden, William allows the little boy to cling for a moment before he sets the boy down, soft fingers wrapped tight around their knife.
Even now, seeing how the boy distrusted him was not a cause for concern, sparked that same flame of pride for his grandson, the best of his line. He’s a perfect example of what a Talon should be. He is cold, calculating, twists strings around himself in a way that belies his age, as though he had lived decades and decades in his body and not mere years and months.
He stays with his grandson, runs his gauntlet through dark strands until the first rays of sun peek through the window of his room.
“How proud of you I am, my little Grayson, precious owlet mine,” William says softly, one last touch of his claws to hair, before he lets himself let go and leave. His grandson would never accept the Court’s control. The boy valued himself too much to sacrifice for the greater good of the Court, which meant he would have a choice to make, and a grandson whose life hung in the balance of his usefulness and his rebellion.
It wasn’t a hard choice to make, in the end. Once the boy was truly asleep, he leaned in to press a kiss to the boy’s hair, humming a lullaby as he watched over his little owlet.
Until his grandson made his choice, William would watch and wait.
It’s late. The bitter April air bites at Dick’s skin even through the thick cloak, and he wonders if he’s hypothermic already, or if the modifications were already in place, keeping him warm. He shakes his head, ignores his idle thoughts. He could wonder about his impending hypothermia later. He had a more important target to find.
Jason.
He’d failed Jason so fucking badly in the last lifetime. Letting him get kicked out because of a rule he’d not even really failed to uphold, watching how he’d let the pit devour him whole…
Dick doesn’t shiver, but it’s only because he’s already well past that level of cold. He hates how he thinks of the icy, indifferent eyes of his brother, the gun that had been shoved in his face more than once just because of who and what he’d been, because he’d chosen Bruce over the boy that had been his successor -
Dick grits his teeth slightly, eyes fixated on Willis Todd as the man slinks out of his apartment.
Luck had favoured him. Nearly ten months had passed since Dick had been picked up by the Court, and he’d finally caught a whisper of Dent’s operations, the name Willis Todd catching his ear. He wanted to make the man suffer, but that would wait. Jason was his priority. Jason, who was probably nearing five or six years old now. Jason, who had been such an indulgent child, who had loved to read, to indulge in his books, who had hidden his precious copy of Pride and Prejudice under his bed, locked in a special box because it had been the first gift he’d ever gotten.
Fuck. Who the hell deserved a kid like Jay? None of them, that was for fucking sure. He slinks after Willis Todd, keeps himself well-hidden in the shadows of the overcast city streets. He didn’t have to bother, really. Willis Todd was human-normal, a pathetic human being and a shitty father. Dick could have been firing a gun behind the man and he’d not have noticed.
He watches as the people around Willis cower, the women cringing if he so much as glances in their direction, and Dick scowls at the useless body.
C’mon, dammit. Hurry up so I can rescue Jaybird, you sack of shit. Dick thinks. It’s quiet and empty, the time-displaced child watching him with a scowl as he drunkenly weaves through the streets. He had a limited time to get Jay, sneak him into Bruce’s Batmobile, and sneak away, dammit. Bruce kept a sporadic schedule, in the early days, and he knew some of the major events, but no way in hell was he putting a kid in Riddler or Joker’s sights just to get him to Bruce. He drops down between two alleyways when Willis enters a small apartment, and quickly, he darts across the empty street as fast as his enhanced body would let him to catch the edge of the door, slipping inside in the next moment before the gate can alert Willis (and the tired-looking bodyguard) of their unwelcome visitor. The place is old enough to still have the old concrete and steel beams criss-crossing over the concrete walkways to keep them stable, and he jumps up to land on one, perching precariously on them as he leaned over the inebriated man’s head.
Tch. Pathetic, Dick thinks acidly to himself. He could have done better when he was actually nine. He waits patiently, checking the little clock posted on the wall. It was getting close to half past 3AM, and he knew Bruce stopped by Crime Alley for about fifteen minutes at around 4AM.
If he was wrong on his timing, getting Jaybird to B’s would be… inconvenient. He didn’t want to drug Jay, or let anyone have a say in this, so if he absolutely had to, he’d get as creative as he had to so he didn’t leave Jay with any bad memories. Before he can shake himself free of that, the door of the Todd’s apartment opens, and he can see a coal-dark head of curly hair poke out before the boy scurries free. He peers down at baby Jay, seeing how the boy was half-drowning in a coat that was twice his size, tiny fists clenched into the fabric. Looking more closely, he can see a bright red mark on a cheekbone, the puffy swell of one bruised eye, and the way the little boy trembled.
That ungrateful son of a bitch, Dick thinks acidly, as little Jay hides under the staircase, tiny hands covering his neck and vulnerable head as he squeezes himself into the smallest safe space he could find.
I’m going to kill you, Willis Todd, his thoughts are furious, rage hazing his vision as the boy he’d failed so many times tried his best to protect himself from that unworthy -
Jason is squeezed tight in his corner, shaking slightly. He’d kept his no-good Pops off of Ma earlier, but he was really angry right now. The kind of anger that only came from when his Pops was working with Two-Face. He’d probably gotten jerked around with the promise of a good payday, and now that Two-Face wasn’t coughing up, he’d probably come to beat him and Mom for not getting him money again.
He expects the door to slam open. He knows Pops is coming with the belt, especially now that he’d gone and run like a coward, instead of taking it like a man. The door slams open, and he shrinks back, terrified. Through the steps, he can see the drunken figure of his father, his face red and a belt in one hand.
“Where the hell did you go you shitty -” Pops stops when Mom stumbles into his arm, clutching it for dear life as though she could protect him.
“Willis, no!” His mom begs, only for the sound of a hand striking flesh to make Jason flinch. She falls to the ground, and Jason knows she’ll be spending hours tonight icing it only to cover it up with makeup that wouldn’t cover it at all when she went to work at the diner.
“Shut up you fucking whore!” He snaps, and he can hear the heavy tread of feet. “That brat’s been disrespectful one too many times -” A dark blur drops from the ceiling, and Jason watches the black blur knock his father down and out, the strange body having dropped like a bird from the rafters.
Or like the Bat.
Hope fills him, and he peers between the steps a little more interestedly. He’d heard about the Bat, about how he’d started cleaning up Gotham. What he was doing though, sending someone here? Some small-time thug couldn’t be worth it, right?
“Willis?” His mom says softly, and Jason can’t help how much that hurts. He was right here, Mom. Couldn’t she just think about him first? “What did you -” The sweep of an arm, and she silences. The black figure that approaches him is too small, too young-looking to be the big bad Batman, and he stares at the kid that looks at him from under the hood of his black cloak. Gold and blue eyes peek out from the gloom, and Jason can’t help but stare, mesmerised.
One hand is covered in gold metal plates that end in super-sharp points, the ends dripping a little with blood, but the hand the boy extends to him is free of blood and doesn’t have the weird gold thing on it.
“Come with me,” the boy says evenly. “I’ll protect you.” Jason’s hand almost reaches out, and he pauses.
“What about Mom?” He asks, and those weird gold and blue eyes stare at him.
“What do you want done with her?” He wonders, and Jason shivers at the cold, calculating way the person under the hood says that. He looks through the steps again, where his mom sits, shaking. She’s a mess, and something in him breaks a little at the sight of her, so frightened and terrified of him.
Of little Jason Todd.
“Will you protect Mom too?”
“Jason!” Mom protests, and the hooded stranger watches him. “He’s a complete -” The head turns, and whatever look he gives her makes the woman go silent. The stranger’s hand comes up to cup his bruised cheek, and he shivers at the tingles of pain it sends all over his body.
“Why should I?” The boy asks. “She let him hurt you.”
“She’s my mom,” Jason protests, and the strange boy stares at him for a moment longer.
“You want to protect her?” He asks, head tilting to a side, and Jason nods vigorously, only stopping when he becomes dizzy. Those eyes look at the woman again, before the figure huffs.
“Only if I can take you somewhere safe first. You’re the one I came to protect.” The stranger says without blinking.
Protect… him? What had Jason ever done for this weirdo?
“But you’ll protect her?” He presses. The figure looks at him, and the golden hand wipes itself off on something under the black cloak before patting the top of his head.
“If you want,” the strange figure says. Jason looks through the steps again, and then back at the stranger.
“Okay,” he says, swallowing nervously. “Okay.” The blue and gold eyes crinkle slightly in a smile.
“Good boy, Jaybird.” The hand ruffles his head again, and that’s the last thing he remembers.
“You can’t just take my son!” Catherine Todd blurts out when Jason slumps, wobbling to her feet as Dick hefts his unconcious Jaybird into his arms, the boy’s head pillowing against his shoulder. He looks at the clock. Four minutes to 4AM.
“He’s not even biologically yours,” Dick says indifferently, and Catherine freezes. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to make sure he gets somewhere safe. You are going to sit here and wait until I get back. When I get back, I am going to take you somewhere Willis Todd will never look for you. If you’re good, I’ll let Jason know where you are. If you aren’t…” he lets the threat hang in the air, and Catherine swallows nervously.
“He’s not your son,” she says weakly, but she’s faltering. A glance. Two minutes.
“I don’t care. I’ll love him more than you ever could.”
It’s telling that she doesn’t answer beyond a slump of her shoulders, the adult in a child’s body disappearing up the stairs. In his arms, Jason slumbers on, and he holds the boy tight.
“You’re going to be okay, Jaybird. I’ve got you. You and B will get along great,” he whispers, ascending up to the third floor so he could hop out and land on top of the nearby convenience store.
As he carries Jason, Dick clutches him tight.
The Joker would touch Jay over Dick’s dead fucking body, which meant Joker had to die.
That was fine. Dick didn’t have any morals left anyways.
When Bruce returned to the Batmobile, it was to a sleeping boy in his passenger seat, a thick blanket tucked around his small body and a note.
His name is Jason Todd. Adopt Jason please. Before his father destroys him.
It’s not signed.