Chapter Text
“Oh, you’re back,” Alfred said when Bruce returned. Then the smell must have hit his nostrils, because the next thing he said was, “Good heavens.”
“I got delayed,” Bruce said.
“I gathered that from the fact you are several hours overdue, Master Bruce,” Alfred replied, standing well back. “Does this have anything to do with the complication you mentioned?”
“Yes,” Bruce said.
He walked around the car. The boy had gone still when they’d reached the cave. Underground again for him. At a guess, he was terrified that Bruce had brought him somewhere no different to his last - residence. Bruce would not, could not, call it a home. He opened the car door and made sure to step right back out of arm's reach.
“Master Bruce, what -“
“Hang on a second, Alfred.” He focused on the boy, rigid and motionless in the passenger seat. “It’s all right. We’re not going to hurt you. The Court won’t find you here.”
What reserves of courage the boy had to draw on, Bruce didn’t know. God forbid he ever had to learn. But he slowly, hesitantly, left the car to stand straight before Bruce. There was something distant in his eyes. Behind him, Alfred stifled an alarmed sound.
“Do you want to go clean up?” Bruce asked. No response. Not a flicker, not a twitch. He tried again, still as gentle as he could be. Like the restraints, it went against everything in his soul to act like this boy’s captors, but he didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t erase years worth of abuse in a night, and he really did need to attend to basic hygiene. “Go get cleaned up. The showers are over there. Alfred will bring you some clothing.”
The boy did not precisely relax, but he nodded. It was something. He took a few cautious steps in that direction.
“Go on,” Bruce said. “It’s all right.”
Once the boy was out of earshot, Alfred rounded on him. “What on earth are you thinking?” he said, gone quiet in anger. “That is a child, not a stray cat. I assume you have your reasons.”
“I found the Court of Owls,” Bruce told him. Said that bluntly, it sounded unbelievable. Bruce wasn’t sure that he believed it. “He said he was the Talon. I couldn’t leave him there. How do you think the authorities will handle him? He’s not just traumatised, he’s deadly.”
“So naturally you brought him here. Where you, of course, have a great deal more emotional resources to deal with the problems such a child may pose, regardless of your capacity to defeat the boy in a brawl.”
“Yes, Alfred, I brought him here! I didn’t know what else I could do with him. I know he might, will, need things that I can’t provide, but I couldn’t just leave him!”
“And then you couldn’t think what to do after that.” Alfred sighed and rubbed at his forehead. “It is possible my own fear for you is affecting my response. I apologise. I know you would not intentionally harm a child nor leave a child to be harmed. I’m just…concerned.”
“I know,” Bruce said. “But at least we can get him cleaned up and give him a hot meal first. Maybe calm him down a little. Just not dump him on social services without warning.”
“As long as we have some sort of plan,” Alfred said. “Now, if you don’t mind me saying so, Master Bruce, you are just as much in need of cleaning up as our guest. Assuming you do not want to use the showers yourself right now and risk frightening the young man, the hose is over there, and there is spare soap in the second cabinet from the stairs. I will do my best to salvage your suit, but it is likely we will have to make replacements for the soft components. I shall start work on the car as soon as I find the spare clothing and make up an extra dinner.”
That said, he went to work, and Bruce got started on the required cleaning-up. He didn’t dare strip all the way down. Just in case. Who knew what the boy had been through, or what he might read into from Bruce stripping down to bare skin. He could, however, take most of the Batsuit off and hose himself down. He’d shower properly later.
He’d just finished a rather hasty scrub when he realised there was a small, silent figure lurking in the shadows not far from the door to the showers. A small, silent, carefully-watching figure, swathed in one of Bruce’s old sweatshirts. It came down to mid-thigh on the boy. No telling how long he’d been there.
There were no pockets in the sweatshirt. The boy was clutching a knife in each hand, held ready to defend himself.
Bruce wouldn’t give him a reason, if he could help it. Especially since he was no longer wearing any armour, and the boy was faster than a child had a right to be. “Hello again,” he said. Hands open and away from his sides, that was the way. No threat here. “Alfred’s gone to find you some food.”
The boy nodded, then hesitated. A flicker of fear crossed his face. “How do I earn it?” he asked.
“It’s a gift,” Bruce said. Fear of having to ask, or fear of what might be asked of him in order to eat? Both? He didn’t look underfed. One small mercy, but then, he would hardly be an effective assassin if he was constantly battling starvation. “You don’t earn it.”
Blue eyes narrowed. He nodded again. “I understand,” he said. He didn’t ask any follow-up questions, or even move. Not even to look around for Alfred. Just stood there, with every indication that he intended to wait indefinitely. His hands stayed on the knives.
“Would you agree to a blood test?” Bruce asked. “I did say I would try and find your name and your family. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Another lightning-fast flicker of emotion, there and gone. The boy didn’t say anything, but he hiked up the sleeve of the sweatshirt, baring an arm.
It looked like consent. Not the verbal affirmative Bruce might have felt more comfortable with, but how to say I want you to say yes or no out loud without further pressuring him? If the fear before had been from asking - did he even dare tell anyone what it was he wanted?
Bruce slowly made his way over to the bench with the medical equipment, angling himself so the boy had a clear view of his hands and everything Bruce touched. Especially the syringe and needle. The boy shuddered but didn’t pull his sleeve back down. Or move his knives into a more threatening position.
Gently and quickly as he could, Bruce drew his guest’s blood. “I’ll run DNA and blood typing,” he said. “We’ll see if there are any matches in the system.”
The boy watched carefully as Bruce started the search running. It seemed the equivalent of avid interest, in a mentally healthier child. He might not say anything, but the boy clearly wanted to know either his name or his family, possibly both. Bruce would do everything he could to give the boy at least that much.
That would take time, though. What did Bruce do with the boy for the moment?
—
Talon decided it liked this cave better than the Labyrinth. This cave was warmer. Not so bright. Not so bare. It wasn’t cluttered, but it looked like someone worked there. The Batman. The Batman’s cave was much better than the Labyrinth. Its masters would punish it for the thought if they knew.
They would punish it for leaving anyway. When they found it. They would know that it had allowed the Batman to take it away.
Unless the Batman hid it. It didn’t know what the Batman might want in return. Its masters had told it that the Batman didn’t kill, and that was what Talon was for. Perhaps the Batman wanted Talon to kill on his behalf?
Perhaps the Batman wanted to hurt it. That was a possibility, and one that kept it holding its knives. It was the Batman’s enemy. It had attacked the Batman in the maze. If Batman was trying to lure it into a false sense of security, Talon would be ready. Talon would fight. Even in this clothing, which was strange and soft against his skin.
But the Batman had also promised to find Talon’s name. It had a name once. It saw its parents fall. It could remember being very small and very scared when it was brought to the Court. It could remember hating its masters, before it learned to obey. It didn’t remember fighting back, but it must have. It couldn’t remember getting all its scars.
There had been something before. It wanted to know what that before was. It missed -
It was not allowed to miss anything.
But it did, it thought mutinously. It hadn’t dared think such things for a long time. Not like this. He did miss his parents.
The screen the Batman had started running showed pictures. Boys with dark hair and blue eyes. Talon wondered if he would recognise his own picture if he saw it.
There was movement over by one of the exits. The Batman’s - it didn’t know the hierarchy. It had to learn that much. This man was old, like many of its masters were old. Was the Batman more like it, then, taking orders from a master? But the old man was carrying a tray. It had a large bowl on it, and smaller bowls and spoons beside it.
Food. Like the Batman had said.
It could be poisoned. As Talon watched, the Batman served himself a smaller bowl from the larger, so the food itself wasn’t likely to be poisoned. The bowl itself, or the spoon, if they were trying to poison it. But there was no way Talon could know.
The Batman had said the food was a gift. Talon was very hungry. It would eat. And if it was poisoned, it would deserve it.
The older man served a second bowl. This one he offered to Talon. “If you’ll pardon me saying so, young man, you will find it easier to eat if you set down at least one of your knives. Easier still if you will set down both.”
Without looking away from the old man, Talon put down one knife and accepted the soup. It was hot, but it knew better than to show pain. Its mouth watered at the smell of chicken and vegetables. It drank half the bowl before it even thought again about poison or being attacked while it was vulnerable.
When Talon had finished, the old man held out an apricot.
“What do I need to do to earn it?” it asked again. It was worth the questions. It wanted the apricot. Its masters rewarded it with fruit for kills.
“It’s a gift,” the Batman said.
A second gift. It found the generosity suspicious. It shook its head. Even if they hurt it for refusing, it wasn’t stupid. Masters did not offer gifts so often.
The older man said, “I will trade you this apricot for the return of the bowl and the spoon.”
That was reasonable. Talon didn’t want to go into arm’s reach of the old man, but it would, and it would get the apricot in return. Acceptable. It did so, then ate the apricot before the old man decided he wanted more than just a bowl and a spoon. As soon as it was done, it picked its knife up again. It had lost most of them fighting the Batman in the Labyrinth and it didn’t like that.
“Perhaps some rest?” the old man said.
The Batman’s head jerked up. He looked at the old man. The old man looked at him too. It didn’t understand what was going on, but the old man said, “I shall get a cot set up down here directly.”
Keeping an eye on both the Batman, the old man, and the screen wasn’t easy. It had done harder things, though. Even though it felt tired and heavy from the food and the warmth. The old man put a cot against a good wall, one where two sides were defended and someone sleeping there still wouldn’t be boxed in if it had to run. The old man added two blankets and two pillows, more soft things than it could remember seeing in one place.
One was a deep shade of green. A second was heavy wool in a multi-coloured pattern it thought was called tartan. They both looked soft. It drifted over once the old man was done and poked at it. Yes. Soft. It sat down. It had been awake for a long time. If it was going to sleep, it might as well sleep on something soft.
Food. Blankets. It would be worth what its masters would do to it just to enjoy these things a little longer. Another mutinous thought. It hoped the Batman found out who it was before its masters took it back.
The blankets were warm too…
—
“How did you know?” Bruce asked.
Alfred sniffed at him. “If you’ll forgive me, Master Bruce, it did not take the world’s greatest detective to see how tired he was.”
Bruce fought the urge to walk over and pull the blankets up over the little assassin. He’d fallen asleep with knives still in hand, and in his sleep was still trying to press back against the wall. If they disturbed him, Bruce would bet money it would turn violent. And Alfred was right; the boy was obviously exhausted.
“You should take the opportunity to sleep as well,” Alfred continued. “I am alert enough to take a shift down here. I do not think our young friend should be left alone at the moment.”
It was a sign of his own fatigue that Bruce hadn’t thought of that. “You’re right,” he said. There were alarms. Alfred would use them if he needed them. “Just one last adjustment.” The searches were taking a while to run. So many missing children. He’d review the possibilities when he woke. Including the possibilities of what to do with the boy himself.
Once upstairs, the first thing on his agenda was to shower properly. He hated sewers. And because Alfred must have been tired too, staying up worrying about Bruce, he set an alarm for four hours later, so he didn’t leave his butler minding a small but dangerously skilled and deeply traumatised assassin all night. He’d barely laid down when it went off again, and outside his bedroom windows, evening had turned to the dead of night.
Still no ideas on what to do with the boy. Bruce pondered it as he made his way back downstairs.
Downstairs was - surprisingly peaceful. All hell had not broken loose. Alfred was quietly working on disassembling the ruined Batsuit for components. “He’s still asleep,” Alfred said. “I believe your search found a few more possibilities.”
Bruce started flipping through them, ruling out possibilities as he went. Dark eyes, chronic health problems, several who had almost certainly been abducted by their biological parent - there.
Dark hair. Blue eyes. Parents killed. Was that why the boy looked familiar?
He ran the DNA test against the crime scene samples from the dead couple and got his answer. “Found him,” Bruce said.
Alfred drifted over. “Richard Grayson,” he said. “The name sounds -“
“I was there that night,” Bruce said. “I gave him my coat.” Somewhere between the circus and the police station, Richard Grayson had vanished. Batman searched for him, of course he had, but the boy was gone, and crime in Gotham went on. He couldn’t solve every crime, he knew that. Even when failure left him with nightmares of his own parents’ murder. He had to keep going.
Only now, he’d found Richard Grayson. Six years too late.
He looked over at the boy, still asleep in a curled-up little ball against the wall. Six years. Six years he’d been with the Court of Owls. Nearly half his life, more than half of what he would be able to remember. Bruce felt sick. “We’ll let him sleep as long as possible,” he said. He wanted to do some pure kindness for Richard. Something that wasn’t going to hurt him, even for his own good.
Letting him sleep as long as he wanted would have to do.
“Naturally. Growing boys need their sleep.”
“So do butlers. Your turn.”
Alfred bowed out. Bruce knew better than to think Alfred would get a full night’s sleep. No more than Bruce had.
In the meantime, now that he knew who Richard was, he needed to find out who had taken him in the first place. He needed to find the Court of Owls, and he needed to stop them from taking Richard again. As well as whatever other plans they might have.
Carefully, so as not to wake his guest, he edged around to his other workstation. The recordings and data from the previous night should be there, so he could look over the data from the Court’s maze with fresher eyes. Tracking down villains through their shell companies and property holdings might not strike fear into the hearts of criminals, but it was effective.
Unsurprisingly, Richard turned out to be a light sleeper. Barely ninety minutes after Bruce returned, one of his computers announced its search results with a soft tone, and the boy was upright, knife in hand, in an instant.
Heart climbing up his throat, Bruce said, “Careful there.”
Richard set his back to the wall and carefully looked around. Bruce could see the question, and so he also saw Richard bite down on it. He was definitely leaning towards the idea that Richard had been punished for asking questions.
“We’re in the cave below my home,” Bruce said, so that Richard didn’t have to ask. “I don’t think I introduced myself yesterday. My name is Bruce Wayne.”
“I am Talon,” the boy said. An introduction, of sorts.
Bruce inclined his head in acknowledgement. “I found the name you were given when you were born, if you want to know it.”
Richard sucked in a breath, then hastily schooled his expression. Bruce didn’t ask him to come closer, not with how he’d reacted to the prospect of approaching Alfred (and not when he was still clinging to his knives), so instead he enlarged his findings so they could be read from where Richard was standing.
“You told me you saw your parents fall,” Bruce said, gently. Horrible as the case was, he wanted Richard to know how his actions had helped Bruce find the information. “I found the case and used the DNA samples you gave me to confirm. Your name is Richard Grayson. Your parents’ names were John and Mary Grayson. You are fourteen years old, and before the Court of Owls took you, you were an aerialist at Haley’s Circus.”
“Richard Grayson,” Richard murmured. He pitched forward alarmingly for a second. “I don’t remember,” he said. “I don’t remember!”
Then he burst into tears. Deep, chest-tearing sobs that hurt to listen to. Richard cried, hunched over, face buried in his knees, well past all attempts to hide his distress.
Screw the knives. This was an injured child. Bruce abandoned the majority of his caution and approached, hands out, in case Richard wanted to reach back.
Somewhat to his surprise, Richard did reach back, grasping Bruce’s hand in a death grip. “I don’t remember,” he said, startling blue eyes tearful and desperate.
Bruce squeezed back, hoping that Richard wouldn’t take it as a threat or a punishment. “Well, Richard,” he said, “We’ll have to see what we can do about that.”