Chapter Text
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Flying Graysons!”
Dick’s up on top of the platform with his parents, waving down at the cheering crowds. He remembered this, not this specific show, but the adrenaline; the one that comes from pleasing a crowd, with all eyes on him, waiting for a show. Waiting for when he would step off the platform and fly.
The rush of power, of freedom and flight at his fingertips, the smooth easy flow through the air, and the reassuring touch of hands as his parents catch him. He remembers this, he misses this.
A boy, with large timid blue eyes, smiles shyly at him. A laugh, his own laugh, as he plucks the boy and place him on his knee, hugging him. He remembers the cotton candy smell of the boy’s hair, the fluffy pink sweet still clinging to the tips. The flash of a camera goes off, and a large, encouraging hand touches his head.
“Good luck today,” says a voice. The sound of it builds up warmth in his belly and spreads it through his limbs. He can’t see the face, or remember the voice, but he still remembers the warmth of it.
Blood seeps into the ground, the deep shade of red staining the dirt around their mangled bodies, the screams that fill the tent and his breath leaves him with choking sobs.
Words of reassurance, words that meant nothing, do nothing, are left unheard as he stares at the grave markers. A heavy hand lands at his shoulder, turning him around, and the face of an owl stared back.
A tribunal, people seated high above him, judging him behind their owl eyes, and an old frail woman in a wheel chair, pointing her claws at his eyes.
“Don’t look worried, dear. We’ll take care of you,” she soothes, stroking his cheek with brittle fingers. He shivers from the cold…
—
The cold cut through the colors, the dimmed memories, and light pierced through his eyelids.
“…hy?”
“Because, I know him, Alfred…”
Voices. Two of them, quiet and distant, but so close. The sky above him was bright and blinding, even through the haze. He shuts his eyes again, and sank back into the void.
—
Rain pours around him, he can hear it, the drops hitting the mud, the soft pads of feet as they sink into it. He’s blindfolded, but he can sense them, -see- them in ways his eyes can’t. The sharp whistle of wind cuts through the air, and the press of cold metal nearly grazing his arm as he ducks, kicks and lunges at the assailants. He cries out when the blade cuts through his shoulder, as he falls and clutches the gaping hole.
Someone leads him to a sarcophagus shaped like an owl, propped up in the middle of the room. The man leads him inside, with Dick’s arms and legs bounded together. The doors close in on him, shutting out the light, his screaming does nothing. No one will listen; it’s only wasting his breath.
The pain cuts deep into his palms, the barbed wires digging into his thighs, the warm free flow of blood cresting down his calves. The tears sting at his eyes and his mouth tastes of hard copper. He can’t feel it anymore.
The world dims down to a grey haze, the edges are fuzzy, and nothing looks real. The blood running down his hand isn’t his, but he’s fascinated by it. The smell is harsh in his nose, and the color’s too deep and rich, and it’s warm. He puts his hand back into the body, and smiles because it soothes his chilled bones.
—
The steady beep of a heart monitor cuts through his awareness. Monitoring… whose heart. His? It’s not his. It couldn’t be. He had no heart.
—
It’s their first encounter, and Dick can’t help but admire him.
His target’s hard scowl sends a strange stir of pleasure in him, tiny and fluttering in his stomach. He sees him, he knows he’s here. He’s ready for him. It makes Talon smile behind the mask.
He’s so close he can hear the man’s breathing, so close they could kiss.
The touches are real and solid, and Talon allows tiny moments to himself, letting his fingers graze Wayne’s palm, watching him longer than he needs to. Years of gazing at grimy photos and static television screens could only reveal so much, and he’s almost drunk from being so close to the real thing.
The words were at the tip of his tongue, the things he wanted to say to him, but watching the blood spurt from the cuts driven into that beautiful skin, it left Dick speechless with awe. And a need to see more cuts carved onto that delicious skin, silence him, letting him ride the flow of the kill.
—
“You’re crazy, Bruce! What do you think he’s going to do to you when he wakes up?”
“I’ll deal with that when the time comes, Jason.”
“Bull. Shit.” Someone scoffed, disgusted. “Do you even hear yourself? Did all those weeks in that hellhole screw you up more than we thought?”
The silence stretched on, thick and heavy. It was almost hard to breathe in it.
“Why do I even bother…” the angry one, Jason, sighed tiredly. “Whatever. When he wakes up and I find you sliced and gutted like a piece of meat, I’m not going to care shit about it.”
For a while, the only sounds prominent were the angry footsteps heading back up a pair of stairs, and all that’s left was someone’s steady breathing. It posed as a comfort to Dick as he slipped back to sleep.
—
Anger and hate pulse through him.
“Shut up..”
Damn him! He won’t let up. The Batman’s eyes are like fire, locking him in place till he can almost feel the physical burn of that gaze on him.
“You think you’re special? Well let me tell you something, you’re not!” The punch connects hard with his face, and he can feel it. The force of the blow snaps his head back, his body crushing the sculpted buildings beneath him. His body shakes, his breathing is short, and he can’t seem to act fast enough.
“Quiet!” Stand up, fight back! Cut him! Make him shut up! But he can’t. Batman’s words have hit home, they’re echoing inside his head, tearing him apart, and he’s not done with him yet.
“Despite what the others may have told you, how special you are, you’re nothing. When I look at you, I don’t see someone special.” Batman growls, picking Talon up by the scruff of his neck. “All I see is just another low-life criminal!”
He doesn’t feel the blow that knocks him into the next room, can’t feel the pain that rocks through him when he hits the ground. His eyes lose their focus, but that doesn’t matter. The pain his body feels is nothing compared to what Batman has done to his heart.
Nothing. No one special. A criminal. Not his liberator, his enemy, his killer, nothing. He is no one to Batman’s eyes, he is nothing to himself, and that hurts more than a decade’s worth of pain.
—-
The light swam into focus, the light still bright, but his eyes had adjusted. They could look on without shying back behind his eyelids. The ceiling was high and dark, the soft cry of bats echoing around him. The room was too vast, and it should have been cold, but Dick was wrapped up in a thick blanket that radiated his body heat back at him. The steady beep of the heart monitor was mounted at the side of the bed, an IV drip pole stood next to him.
Dick looked at all of this with confusion slowly settling into his muddled brain. He knew where he was, he read the reports. This was the Batcave. What didn’t make sense however was, why was he here?
He should be with the Court, laid out in their recovery room, with the feeling of vengeance flowing through him. Not in the home of the enemy, feeling lost and alone-discarded.
Getting to his feet wasn’t difficult, but the lightheaded feeling was new. He gripped the IV pole for support, blinking away the black spots of his vision as they danced in front of him. He gritted his teeth. He didn’t like this momentary feeling of blindness. It meant he was vulnerable, open to attack. A moment of weakness.
Maybe it was years of training, or the heightened senses that made up for the seconds of blindness, but he heard the soft crunch of feet approach him from a set of stairs. He whirled, using the pole as a weapon, his veins thrumming with nerves put on the edge, adrenaline pumped fiercely through his veins, poised to strike and kill.
An old man stopped in his descent down to the cave, a tray with bandages and a small bottle of anesthetic in his hands, looked down at Dick with barely a slight pause of surprise.
“Finally you’re awake. I think it’s time to tell Master Bruce the news.”