The Last Talon

Chapter Seven

'It burns.' Dick whimpered. He'd thrown his pride away hours ago. Every time Cobb injured him he had to heal the wound and it hurt. It burned his flesh just as it had the first time the electrum entered his bloodstream.

'The more you do it, the less it will hurt. Now get up!'

Dick panted for a few moments before relaxing ever so slightly, enough for the electrum in his blood to pinpoint the place of trauma. He grits his teeth as it collected around his shattered knee and began piecing it back together. After a minute or two, the burning started to subside and he brought his leg under himself and pushed his body off the floor.

'Good. The more you surrender to the process the quicker you will heal. Remember you can't hesitate in combat.'

'I know.'

Cobb glared at him.

'Grand Master.' Dick corrected himself, hating every second of doing so.

'Good. Now try again. We are going to continue until you can heal faster. We did not make you stronger so you could disappoint us, Gray Son.'

'Dick?'

Dick blinked, his eyes refocusing. Green eyes were right next to his face.

'You ok Buddy?'

Dick suddenly felt very tired. For a moment there he had felt like he was back in the Court. He could even feel the remnants of the burning sensation in his knee. He remembered that day. Cobb had made him train for hours, inflicting injury after injury on him until he could heal them without so much as blinking in discomfort. After shattering his knee he had severed an artery in his arm, then stabbed him in the chest. He had ended the session by slitting his throat. An eye for an eye he had said.

He sank to the floor, trying to shake the memories away.

'Dick, when was the last time you slept?'

Dick shook his head, shrugging. Nineteen years ago apparently.

'I'm a Talon.' He whispered. 'We don't need as much self-care as humans.'

It broke Wally's heart to hear Dick say the word human as though it no longer applied to him. He wasn't an idiot, he could see the changes in Dick. The eyes, the pale complexion, the way his body twitched and reacted to everything around him as though it was always on high alert. But he had seen the Talon's when they had been awakened from hibernation. Even though they were sick and dying, they were still terrifying and inhumanly emotionless. They were like machines. But Dick couldn't have been more different. He showed all his emotion on his face, he sounded and acted just like Robin had when he was still on the Team. Dick may have been a Talon physically, but at heart, he was still very much human.

'You may not need as much, but you do need some.' He sat crossed legged in front of him. 'You look exhausted, Dick.'

'I can't sleep.' Dick admitted. 'When I'm alone my mind starts to over think and I end up convincing myself if I sleep I will wake up and another twenty years will have passed.' It felt good to finally admit that to someone.

Wally thought for a moment and decided upon something. 'If you're up for meeting two more people and you can put up with my son's verbal diarrhoea, I think I've got an idea.'

Dick relented and followed Wally down the corridor towards the living area. He noticed as they went that everything was very quiet.

'Where is everyone?'

'It's summer vacation so the Team is most likely down at the beach, the rest of the League are at the headquarters.' Wally explained. In truth, as soon as the heroes had been told that Dick was venturing out into the rest of the cave they had made themselves scarce; not wanting to overwhelm the boy.