'Wally.'
Dick didn't know whether to smile, hug his friend or just lie down in a fetal position. This was all becoming way too much. Wally, Kid Mouth, his best friend was not only grown up but he had a kid! A teenager no less.
'Your eyes are really weird.' Said teenager was looking at Dick intently, leaning forward to get a better look without actually getting closer to the Talon.
'Ben!' Wally reprimanded, before looking back to Dick. 'Sorry, doesn't have a filter between his brain and mouth.'
'That sounds familiar.' Dick heard himself say and as Wally laughed he felt more at ease.
'Ben, go find your mother.' Wally said and in the blink of an eye, Ben was gone. Yep, definitely Wally's son.
'I take it you finally got a girlfriend then.' Said Dick lightly, he had no idea how to address this situation.
Wally laughed again more self consciously and raised a hand to rub the stubble on the side of his face.
'Yeh, even got her to marry me.'
Dick didn't mean for his expression to sadden, he tried his best to hide it. But Wally was married. He had missed his best friends wedding. The birth of his best friends child. He had missed so much. It wasn't fair.
'Who's the lucky lady?' He asked, trying to distract himself from his lowering thoughts. Again Wally laughed.
'Artemis actually.'
'Took them long enough.' Damian said quietly. Clearly, the sexual tension between the two young heroes had continued long after Dick had left the team...and disappeared. 'I'm going to help Annie with some prep work for Batman.' He gave Bruce a look.
'I will help you.' He said. As much as it was making him feel slightly sick, he knew he needed to let Dick have some independence and start experiencing things on his own again. Catching up with his old friend wasn't something he needed his father for.
After they were gone the two friends stood before each other awkwardly.
'So how you holding up?' Said Wally, walking over to the bench and sitting himself down on it. There was plenty of space for Dick but the young Talon stayed standing, rubbing the remaining blood on his hands.
'I'm ok.'
'Really?
'No.' Dick admitted, looking up into the nest. He'd fallen from it once when he was younger. He'd broken his ankle for his troubles. Turning his attention to his hands he took in the smooth, undamaged flesh that covered them. It was just a reminder of what he had become. 'Everything is so different.'
'I can't even imagine what you're going through. Or what you've been through!' Wally said gently. Dick could see the concern all over the gingers face. He hated that everyone was so concerned about him.
'I'll be ok.' Dick said thoughtfully.
Wally could tell his young friend was hiding how much he was hurting, but he knew better than to push so he settled for smiling.
'You always were good at getting back on your feet.'
Back on your feet.
'Get back on your feet, Richard.'
Dick shook from the pain in his leg. He tried to stand but his knee was shattered.
'I can't.' He croaked.
'Get back on your feet.' William repeated.
'I can't!' Dick shouted.
'Yes, you can. Allow the electrum to heal your wound.' William said somewhat patiently.
'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.
They made their way into the living room and two women looked up as they entered. A blonde woman stood first, slowly coming over with a sad smile on her face.
'Hello, Dick.' She said.
'Hi, Arty.' The tight feeling in his chest returned and he struggled to swallow it down, especially when the second woman approached. Her hair was long and dark, her skin as pale as his own. Bright purple eyes stared at him knowingly, her empathic abilities no doubt picking up on his anxiety.
'It has been a long time...Robin.'
'Hello, Raven.' Hearing the name of his old persona tightened his chest even more and the empath was picking up on it.
'It's ok.' She said. 'You don't have to be so controlled.'
But I do, Dick thought. The alternative did not bear thinking about.
'Come and sit down here.' Wally directed him to the couch and he sat down in the corner, drawing himself into a ball. Wally then turned to Raven and asked her how the improvements to the Titans Tower were coming along. Soon all three of them were in deep conversation, the room felt relaxed and dare he even say safe.
Ben entered soon after and upon seeing Dick came and sat beside him.
'I'm really sorry about earlier.' The thirteen-year-old said. 'I didn't mean to distract you, but you were seriously amazing up there.'
'It's ok.' Said Dick, 'no harm done.' He raised his palms to show the kid he wasn't injured.
Ben sighed in relief and continued to talk to his new friend. Dick was surprised how often the kid could switch topics; Wally hadn't been kidding when he said his son had verbal diarrhoea. Despite this, Dick decided he liked him. He reminded him of what Wally had been like when he had first met the speedster. Slowly, as he listened to Ben rattle on, his eyes began to close. With the voices of his friends all around him, he felt safe.
Artemis nudged her husband with her foot, nodding her head in the direction of the couch. All adults turned to see Ben scrolling through his phone and still talking whilst Dick had curled up on his side and was now asleep.
'Would you look at that.' Said Artemis, getting the Boy Wonder to actually sleep had been a task when they were younger. Now they had gone through the trials of getting a baby to sleep every night it suddenly didn't seem as hard.
'Parenting,' said Wally, leaning back in his chair. 'It's a superpower.'
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
Anastasia Pennyworth was good at following her gut instinct. It was what made her a good agent working for GCHQ back in England and what had ultimately landed her the job working with the secret service. Her stubborn nature and general lack of appreciation for the proper protocol was what lost her the job as an agent but was a trait that was appreciated and valued working with Batman.
'Bruce, you might want to come and have a look at this.' Annie's fingers flew across the keyboard with a practised speed.
'What's wrong?'
'After Terry found the hibernation chamber in the underground cellar I did some digging into the fire itself. It was arson and a professional job at that.'
'Why would someone purposefully burn down that building?' Bruce mused, 'It wasn't worth anything and no one would benefit from the insurance.'
'Exactly, unless whoever started the fire knew the chamber was down there.'
'Only problem to your theory,' said Terry, half dressed in his Batman suit. 'The fire never reached the chamber.'
'No, but I looked into that as well. The fact that the fire didn't completely destroying the structure and send it crumbling to the lower cellar is nothing short of a miracle. If it had, I doubt Terry would ever have found your son.'
'So somebody may or may not have set the fire to kill Dick. Is that all you've got?' Asked Terry, sneering at the young Brit.
'Of course not Terence.' She turned back to the computer. 'After you guys removed the chamber I asked Damian to plant motion cameras. And they were recently activated.' She pressed a button and footage popped up onto the screen. Everything was a weird shade of green, allowing them to see three figures in the darkness. They descended into the cellar and then one of them lowered a hood, revealing a round white mask. Annie paused the footage.
'Look familiar.'
'The Owls.' Said Bruce.
'You mean the Court of Owls? The Owls who took Dick? The Owls that are extinct? Those Owls?' Said Terry.
'I don't think so.' Bruce re-wound the footage and watched them decent again. 'Dick said that the Court placed him in hibernation to protect him from the virus. If he meant that much to them, why would they try to kill him? Besides...' He watched it again. 'If the Owls had wanted to kill him, they would have succeeded.'
'So who are these guys?'
'I don't know. But we are going to find out.'