Whumptober 2021- day sixteen
On a need to know basis
Recovery, scars, aftermath

Dick's time as a talon is long since behind him. He has friends, a family, a life.
But the court begins to emerge in Gotham once more, and everything is revealed.

This is also a gift for Awesomedurra because they were rambling in the writing chat and it gave me inspiration :D

Bruce looked up at the swinging chandelier, hands on his hips and one eyebrow raised. Alfred was doing a very good job of not laughing as he watched from the staircase.

"Hey Robin," Bruce called up to the child hanging on to the chandelier, "you wanna come down for me?"

The small child blinked down at him, then looked at Alfred, and shook his head, "I don't."

Bruce sighed. If having Robin in his house was helping with anything, it was Bruce's ability to be direct with what he said. Robin was still working on communication, and understanding the complete meaning of things said to him and how tone or context could make meanings vary. It was understandable, Bruce doubted the court wanted their young talon to become a conversationalist.

"I meant, could you please come down, Robin?"

Robin looked a little sad about that, "I won't get hurt."

"I know, chum," he said, feeling a twinge of success. Robin had started out always doing as he was told, constantly reacting to the tiniest twitch and obediently hanging on to every word Alfred or Bruce said. The fact that Bruce asking him to do something was being met with hesitance and argument- even an only light argument- was a very good sign, "But you might break the chandelier."

At that Robin looked guilty, and he carefully let go of the fixture and flipped gracefully to the ground. The height was enough that a normal child of his size and age should have broken many limbs on impact, even Bruce would have hurt himself with all his training in breaking a fall, but Robin flipped and twisted in the air till he slipped into a roll and popped up on his feet, unharmed. That was a good sign, too. At first, he had been very acrobatic and graceful in his movements, but he flipped and twisted as much as necessary to fight. Bruce had spotted him walking on his hands through the halls, cartwheeling around when he thought no one was paying attention, climbing things and flipping off of them with a small grin.

He was beginning to learn how to do fun things.

Hence. Chandelier.

Bruce smiled down at him, "that was amazing, chum," he said, and Robin brightened at it, "but Alfred and I would prefer if you didn't swing off of things you could break."

He nodded quickly, "you don't want me to break things, I understand. Things are important."

"no, no," Bruce laughed lightly, crouching to be on eye level with him, "things are important, yes, but mainly we don't want you to break things because then Alfred needs to clean them up. And he'll make you help."

"I like helping Alfred."

"but it'd be mean you give him more work to do, wouldn't it?"

Robin blinked, frowned, and then seemed to grasp the idea and nodded. He looked over at Alfred and said, "sorry."

"Thankfully, the chandelier is still where it should be, master Robin. Apologies are unnecessary."

Robin smiled sheepishly, and Brue counted that as another win. Originally his emotive displays were narrowed to scared, sad, calm, deathly calm. Happy took a while, and Bruce would never live down the fact that he'd almost tripped over his own feet the first time he heard the kid laugh.

Bruce was worried about when Robin finally grappled with emotions enough to reach angry. If Bruce couldn't teach him how to deal with things healthily and consider the consequences of his actions, he could hurt someone. Bruce was pretty sure he was around ten, and the court's records pointed towards him having been under their thumb for around two years. His maturity was still stuck at around eight, and his object permanence was very messed up by the fact that he'd been turned into a murderer at such a young age.

"Now that you're not hanging from 25 feet above the ground," Bruce started, standing up and putting his hands in his pockets, "it's getting pretty late."

Robin lit up with excitement, "can I finally come with you on patrol?"

Bruce pretended to think about it, "I don't know..."

"Please! Please, please, please!"

"Well, it would be a shame if he couldn't come, Master Bruce," Alfred said, "after Lucius and I spent all that time making his suit."

Robin's mouth gaped open in surprise and he looked up at Bruce as he practically vibrated with excitement.

"You want to save some people?"

Robin's answer was to shout, "race you!" as he bolted for the staircase.

Robin liked being a hero.

He liked helping his Batman- who wasn't a grandmaster because he didn't have a grandmaster anymore- and he liked being Robin, not Talon. Robin didn't make people scared, and he didn't have to hurt people. And when Robin fought it was because he was protecting innocents.

Robin didn't know where the name Robin came from, but it was somewhere in his memories. Buried deep. It hurt to try and pull at the memories, like he was unpicking stitches that hadn't healed. Or maybe they had, but they'd healed wrong.

Batman seemed to like him, though. So he was okay if it would take a while to find out who he was before he was Talon. Batman liked him and so did Alfred. Robin was happy to be Robin, he didn't need to know who came before Talon.

Batman helped him understand how the electrum worked, helped him control it. it used to be so strong, he felt it in his limbs, in his fingers, in his eyes, always with a vice grip on him. The Grandmaster said the electrum was to keep him safe and to make him better, but Batman had helped him control it, instead of the other way around, and now he realised that the electrum only existed to make him obey. Sometimes he woke up from nightmares and the electrum was gripping his heart till everything slowed to nothing and all he could feel was a fear that he wasn't doing the right thing, that he wasn't being good, that the grandmaster would be upset.

But he knew how to control it now, and he would never have to obey the grandmaster again.

So Talon dies, and Robin rises. And when Batman finds out who came before Talon he clings to that name, too. Dick Grayson. The name eases some kind of tightness left in him, and he stares at old photos until he can feel the stitches in his brain plucked raw and memories surge forth. He begs Alfred to change the colours of his costume, and even though they're less saturated they're still that green, red and yellow, and the feeling of the bright cape around his shoulders is like an embrace that he sorely misses.

Robin becomes Dick Grayson, a complete person with a mind that is his and a personality and a family and friends. And even when he and Bruce have fights and even when he has to give up Robin he knows that it's okay because even without Robin he is still Dick Grayson.

Talon dies, and he becomes Nightwing and someone else takes up his old mantle, his old name. and he's okay with it. Not at first. It brings some sore feelings between him and Bruce back to the surface and they fight again and again, but the little boy he's taken in needs Robin as much as Dick did.

When Bruce asks him if he wants Jason to know, he shakes his head. He hides it all. Talon is dead, the court is dead, it's all buried so far it doesn't matter anymore. It's not who he is.

Three people carry that part of his life, and that's how he likes it. He doesn't want the others to know about Talon, doesn't want them to know what Dick was like when the name Grayson was weighted with blood.

That's how it is. That's how he wants it to stay.

Fate has other plans.

It came out of nowhere, actually. Dick was at the manor because Duke just moved in officially so he wants to hang around a bit and make sure none of his siblings try any indoctrination techniques.

He was making himself an afternoon cup of coffee; Damian was doing homework at the kitchen table. Dick was confused by the location choice but he was not about to make Damian feel the need to defend his choice to exist outside his room.

When Dick finished making his coffee he turned toward the door, and Damian looked up and asked him, "what's the court of owls?"

Dick froze, and it took him a few moments to get over the slip-up. It was all buried so far down it didn't affect him anymore, but he'd never expected a reminder to come in the form of Damian asking him about it.

He sat across the table from Damian, and asked, "where'd you hear about them?"

Damian shrugged, "the kids at school were talking about them. They said they were a myth but I don't recall them from any religions or mythologies I've learned about."

Dick ran his tongue along his teeth as he considered what to say. Damian was the type that would keep digging if Dick refused to tell him, but he was also the type to look for more once he'd been given some information.

Eventually, he settled on saying, "They were a group of Gotham elite that used to manipulate the city for their own designs."

"Why write a nursery rhyme?"

Dick raised an eyebrow, "you think they wrote it themselves?"

"well, who did?" Damian asked, "and if they're a secret manipulative group, why did they let a nursery rhyme become common knowledge?"

"It was a scare tactic," Dick said.

Damian wrinkled his nose, "but it makes no sense. Sure, there's the threat of the talon, but who is the talon? What's so scary about them? And it says to beware and not speak of them, but gives no other information other than that they stalk you, so why would you talk about them anyway?"

Dick shrugged, "no idea Dami, I wasn't around when Bruce took down the court."

Dami made a face, annoyed by the lack of information, but he seemed to have decided it was just another nonsensical thing about Gotham and let it go.

Damian huffed a breath as he sat on the couch.

"Oh," Tim said, "that doesn't sound good."

"Nothing. I got nothing out of him," Damian said.

Tim scrunched his nose in annoyance and then returned his gaze to his computer.

"Have you gotten the rest of father's files yet?" Damian asked.

"No," Tim said, "there's the bare essentials here but the rest is all hidden. I can't get into them."

"We might need to enlist Barbara's help," Jason said, "She might have better luck getting to the files."

"Are you sure Dick didn't know anything?" Tim asked.

"He didn't seem to. He said he wasn't with Father when Batman took down the court."

Tim frowned, sharing a confused look with Jason, "that doesn't make sense."

Damian looked between them, "what do you mean?"

"The timeline doesn't add up," Jason said.

"Dick's parents were murdered when he was eight," Tim said, "and he's told me that he didn't spend time in an orphanage or anything so Bruce must have taken him in almost immediately. Bruce took the court down almost two years later, and Dick told me that he knew Bruce was Batman from the beginning."

"There's no way he wasn't there when the court was taken down," Jason said, "But none of these files mention him, so maybe Bruce kept him separate from the whole thing."

Damian frowned at the carpet, "I don't think Grayson would lie to me."

Jason and Tim shared an awkward look, "I'm sure there's a good reason," Tim said eventually.

"We need to get to the bottom of this," Jason sighed, sitting on the couch as well.

"why can't we just go to Father?" Damian asked, "you should have from the beginning."

"No," Jason said, "something about this doesn't add up. We're not going to Bruce till we know what's going on."

"Grayson said the court used to use their power to manipulate the city, they're dangerous, father needs to know," Damian said.

"Jason's right," Tim cut in, "the fact that these files are securely locked, that Dick clearly lied, that nothing adds up, that means this is something important-"

"all the more reason to tell father!"

"No," Tim said with a shrug, "If we tell him he'll obsess over it. and there's still plenty of chance it's all a ruse. The person who attacked Jason didn't even say 'court of owls', he said parliament. This could be some big practical joke from one of the rogues."

Damian scowled at the two of them. Tim turned back to his computer and dove into trying to get access to the files. Damian stared at Jason; Jason stared at Damian.

Damian bolted over the couch and sprinted for the door.

"Shit!" Jason hissed as he vaulted over the couch and began to pursue Damian.

Tim looked up as his two brothers ran out of the room, and dropped his head backwards and sighed loudly. he then closed the laptop and forced himself to his feet. "No, Damian, don't go," he said, in a deadpan voice.

Jason pursued Damian up the staircase and Tim watched Jason slip thanks to his socks and slam his head into the stair. He winced, but didn't bother to do more than walk towards him. Damian continued to bolt from the staircase towards the study, and shouted, "Father! Todd has something to tell you!"

"You little halfling git!" Jason snapped once he was back on his feet and able to chase after Damian again.

"Where'd you see your brother last, Tim? Oh, he was chasing Damian and he slammed into a wall and now he's dead again, what a shame, anyway what's the court of owls?"

"Court of owls?"

Tim jumped, holding in a yelp as he turned, hands at the ready to karate chop the person who snuck up on him, but he quickly dropped them behind his back with a sheepish smile when he realised it was Alfred.

"now," Alfred said, with a suspicious eyebrow raise, "where did that topic of conversation come from?"

"uhhhhh," Tim fumbled for words. Eventually, he settled on a dejected sigh and said, "let's just go to the cave and we can all explain together."

Bruce heard Damian coming into the cave a good minute before he actually got in. when he did, he was rolling on the ground, Jason attached to him, and they were pushing and shoving each other in a wrestling match devoid of any skill.

Bruce sighed as he looked down at the two of them, "Damian what did you call Jace this time?"

Jason looked insulted by the idea he'd react this severely just to name-calling, and Damian used the chance to shove his face away and extricate himself.

"Todd got attacked the other night by someone trying to kill him and-"

"shut it!" Jason said, slapping a hand over Damian's mouth. Damian responded by biting his hand, and Jason practically screeched as he held his wrist as far away from Damian as possible, "you beast!"

"Someone tried to kill you?" Bruce asked, ignoring Damian's scowl as he wiped at his tongue with a hand as if he were cleaning it of Jason's taste, "are you injured?"

Tim arrived at that moment, Alfred at his side.

"No, I'm fine, Damian is overexaggerating, isn't he Tim?"

Tim looked at Jason with a deadpan expression and said, "we're caught. What a shame. Alfred knows all, as usual."

Bruce waited expectantly while his sons gathered their wits, and then said, "an explanation would be good about now."

Jason sighed with his entire body, then said, "I got attacked by someone, and I shook them off my tail, but I think they wanted me to get away. They said something about the parliament of owls sentencing me to death or whatever. We were trying to figure out what that is."

Bruce stared at him like he'd grown a second head. After a few moments of tense silence, Alfred said, "I will go find Master Dick and bring him down here."

"right," Bruce said, "yes."

Jason, Tim and Damian shared several looks with different meanings.

"Okay," Bruce said, pointing towards the computer and its many chairs, "talk. Now. Tell me everything."

Jason gave a play by play of what happened, explaining that the would-be-assassin was black-clad and wearing an owl mask. He'd made his intent very clear and Jason had eventually decided that he was better off chasing the assassin from his tail than trying to beat him and getting knocked around.

"so," Tim said, "what are they?"

Bruce was leaning his elbows on his knees and he looked very displeased.

Silence reigned for a moment, and then Damian said, "why did Grayson lie?"

Bruce closed his eyes and sighed, "It's complicated."

"Bruce, what is the court of owls?"

Bruce sook his head and sat up straight, "we're not having this conversation till Dick is here."

"what conversation?" Dick asked, Alfred at his elbow. Once he saw the looks of differing levels of worry his eyes turned analytic, "what's going on?"

"You'll want to sit down," Bruce said.

"Don't stall," Dick said.

Bruce pursed his lips, "I'm not stalling. You should sit."

Dick raised an eyebrow expectantly, and Bruce gave in.

"It's the court," he said, "they're back."

Dick hadn't felt like this in a while.

His brain slowed, and everything seemed to become very far away. He was stuck between comprehending what Bruce had just said and then deciding what to do with the information. It was a glitch, an error, everything was failing to load.

Was he breathing? He wasn't sure if he was breathing.

His limbs felt tingly, numb almost, in a distant way. And now that the court was at the forefront to his mind the sensation made him panic.

The court was back. the court was back. the court was back.

Bruce promised. Bruce told him he destroyed the court, he told him he was safe, he promised, he promised, he promised. But the court was back, it was back, the grandmaster would come for him and he'd be punished and they'd strap him down and pump him through with electrum again and they'd break him back into pieces and turn him into a talon.

"Grayson?" Damian was standing next to him, and Dick was barely aware of it until Damian grabbed his hand.

Alfred told Damian 'no' and Bruce lurched forward to stop him, but it was too late. Dick wrenched his hand back like Damian's touch burned him and stumbled backwards.

The words grey son echoed in his mind, and it sounded like an accusation.

He was shaking, and the panic at the back of his mind was leeching into him, a vice grip on his heart and limbs. He felt a chill on his ribs, scraping down his spine, he could hear voices in his head, whispering and low, always the same, always the same, orders, orders, orders, blood on his hand and more people at the end of his blade and so much pain and the cold of hibernation between each mission as they left him in a limbo of nothing, paralysed and unable to move or think or feel but still on the edge of awareness. Obey. The word cracked through his skull like a lifeline. If he obeyed, if he bowed down to the grandmaster, if he just did what he was told they wouldn't hurt him and maybe he could use himself as a bargaining chip if he just gave himself up they wouldn't hurt his family, they wouldn't punish him by hurting them, he'd take any pain in the world if it meant they were safe.

Everything came rushing back as Bruce draped his cape over his shoulders.

He was on his knees. When had he fallen?

Bruce said, "breathe." And Dick sucked a breath in past his teeth, shuddering with the effort it took to not cry in front of his brothers.

"You promised," he managed to say, staring at Bruce's chest, "you promised- you said- you promised."

"I know," Bruce said, careful not to touch Dick but hovering within arms reach, hesitant and looking pained by the fact that he didn't know what to do. "I thought they were gone. it's okay, you're safe-" Dick shook his head as Bruce spoke, clutching onto the cape with the same fervour he'd done so all those years ago, "you're safe, they're not going to come here, they can't take you."

"They will," Dick said, eyes wide, "they will, they'll come, I can't- Bruce, I can't- I..." he screwed his eyes shut, trying to keep the tears at bay, he didn't want to cry in front of his brothers. His reaction was probably scaring them enough already if he broke down completely...

And worse yet, Damian was there, and Dick had spent so long gaining Damian's trust and respect and he couldn't bear Damian going back to the way he'd treated Dick before he grew to see him as family. He couldn't take that right now.

He leaned forward a little, and Bruce took the invitation and pulled him close.

"Breathe, Dick, don't worry about anything else just focus on breathing for me, okay?"

Dick shuddered in his grip, and he realised belatedly that he could feel the electrum rising under his skin, pushing at his control. He focused on his breathing until he could get it to even out, every inhale grating down the jagged edges of the electrum trying to break free and force his head back under, pushing everything away until all he wanted was to obey.

The silence was broken, eventually, when Jason cleared his throat.

"Not now Jace," Bruce said.

"Grayson?" Damian approached hesitantly,

Dick flinched and Bruce said, "don't call him that."

Damian faltered, and then soldiered on anyway, bracing himself as if going against Bruce and attempting to comfort Dick was his god-given purpose. He walked around Bruce and sat at Dick's side.

Dick didn't want to look at Damian, didn't want to let him see the fear in his eyes, and he didn't want to lean out of Bruce's hug.

"What is the court?" Damian asked, keeping his voice soft, "what did they do to you?"

"I can't do this," Dick whispered, "please don't make me tell them, I don't... I can't relive that-I thought I was over it but I can't- Batman-"

Bruce gave his shoulders a squeeze, holding him tighter, "I've got you, it's okay."

Damian hesitated, watching Dick with a worried gaze. He reached out a hand and touched Dick's arm, feeling lost as he watched Dick fall apart at so few words, and Dick flinched from his touch at first before he managed to force his hands to unclench from the cape. He held an arm out and Damian latched onto him.

"You're scaring me," Damian said, "what's wrong? What's going on?"

Something in Dick broke once Damian said the words 'you're scaring me'. He wanted to protect him, reassure him; he'd spit in the grandmaster's face before he let anyone in the court lay a hand on Damian.

"you can go upstairs, go to bed, I can tell them," Bruce said, "it's okay."

Dick thought he'd have a panic attack if he went up into the manor while everyone else remained in the cave.

Somewhere along the way Tim and Jason had also approached, but they were a bit more apprehensive than Damian and were instead sitting an arms breadth away, watching like they were caught between worry and fear and couldn't decide on how to handle the two emotions.

Dick shook his head.

"I was a talon."

The room was too big, too empty to hold the admission. It echoed around the walls, expanding until it filled the room, pressing on Dick's ears and weighing him down with the enormity of it. He felt like he was surrounded on all sides.

Damian was still holding him, but he had gone tense and was now looking up at Dick like he was trying to fit this piece of information in with everything else he knew about him. Tim was calculating, lining up the information, putting together the timeline until it all clicked together and made sense. Jason stared.

Jason was the emotional one, which seemed ironic seeing as Dick was the one collapsed in Bruce's arms right now, but he lived up to it when he exclaimed, "what?"

Dick flinched, tightening his grip on Damian. He breathed a small sigh of relief when the boy tightened his own grip back.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Jason stood, hands gesturing wildly, "why didn't you explain to us what the court was? Why are we only learning about this now?"

"You didn't need to know," Dick said, his voice died once it got to his throat, and it fell out of his mouth like water. It trickled on the ground, sinking into the floor like poison, leeching into the room until it dropped the temperature and turned the atmosphere grey, "That's not who I am anymore."

"You should have told us-"

"Master Jason," Alfred cut in, "I think it would be best if you retire for the night."

"No," Jason hissed, "I want answers. What the fuck-"

"Jason," Dick cut in, "I'm sorry-"

"you're sorry?" Jason asked, "sorry? You think sorry changes the fact that you lied about you are for years-"

"Jason," Bruce cut in, "hear us out before you make a judgement."

"I think I've heard enough to-"

"Shut up Todd," Damian said, still gripping Dick tight, "shut up or get out."

"Listen here you little-"

"no," Tim said, grabbing Jason by the leg as he strode for Damian, "this was the point. This was the whole point. They attacked you so that we'd know they're back and we'd talk about it. they were hoping there'd be some kind of turmoil, we can't get off track."

Jason grit his teeth, but he stilled and said, "fine." He scowled down at Dick, "start talking, Grayson. If anyone's going to fill us in on what the court is it should be you."

"Jason," Bruce said in a ton so full of warning it made Dick shudder.

"no, it's okay, it's fine," Dick said, rocking back and sitting up, "he's just reacting, it's fine."

Damian tightened his grip as if to warn him not to attempt at letting go, Dick rubbed his thumb between Damian's shoulder blades. If it weren't for the context he'd be over the moon about Damian being willing to hold him.

"The court was an organisation of Gotham's elite; it's been around since the city was founded. Bruce's grandparents were actually in it." Dick swallowed as he braced himself to dive into this conversation, "they used their power and money and resources to control Gotham, pulling strings to accomplish their perfect image of the city."

"but they're assassins?' Tim frowned, "what are the Talons?"

Dick nodded, "the court is run by the owls. They're the members, and every family has a- a talon," his voice wavered as he said it, "and they're..."

He couldn't say it, his voice was evaporating in his throat.

Bruce noticed as much, so he picked up where Dick left off, "They manufactured a chemical known as electrum. it gives their talons improved speed and strength, and it makes their healing so advanced they're nearly impossible to kill, and as long as they're alive their injuries are temporary. The talons were used to remove obstacles that cannot be otherwise manipulated."

"and you killed for them."

Dick full-body winced at Jason's tone.

"It makes them obey," Bruce said, levelling a glare on Jason, "the process removes free will. And the talons have no chance to fight it because as soon as their mission is done they put them in cryogenic stasis."

"You would have been ten."

Dick glanced at Tim, who was looking at him like his heart was breaking.

"right?" Tim said, "when Bruce took down the court, you'd have been ten. And you were with them, that's why you didn't help Bruce destroy the court. They took you when your parents died."

Dick pursed his lips. He wasn't strong enough to look Tim in the eye.

Silence prevailed until Damian spoke up, "anything to say for yourself, Todd?"

Jason chewed on his words. He was too prideful to say anything other than, "why didn't you tell us?"

Dick screwed his eyes up, "I should have."

"Why didn't you?"

"I didn't want you to know," Dick said, "I thought... I didn't- I did a lot of bad things, Jay." He looked up into his little brother's eyes, "I'm not that person anymore, I'm Dick Grayson, I'm not Talon. I didn't want you to think of me as that."

Jason's hands were in fists at his sides, and he couldn't look Dick in the eyes.

Dick looked up at Bruce, "I don't know how to take them down, Bruce. I don't know how to stop them."

"we'll figure it out."

"It didn't work," Dick said, "They've been gone all this time, they must have been putting themselves back together, we can't stop them, they're just going to keep coming back-"

"Breathe," Bruce said, rubbing his hands up and down Dick's biceps in a soothing gesture, "we'll figure this out."

"How can you say that?" Dick said, "how can you be so sure?"

Bruce sighed and pressed a hand to the back of Dick's head, pulling him against his chest and carding his hand through his hair in a soothing gesture.

"I won't let them take you."

"But what if-"

"no," Bruce said, and the strength of his voice was enough to make Dick believe for a moment when he said, "You're safe here."