A/N okay here's our real big clihe, incoming, good luck
Thalia insisted that Dick be able to have a shower and eat and change into decent clothes before they talked. The clothes supplied turned out to be pants that were cut similar to sweatpants but somehow made fancy, and Dick couldn't for the life of him figure out how they'd managed that, and a long sleeved shirt with a hood and dark blue lining and flat shoes.
There was a perfect spot to hide a knife and a spot to slip a sword on the belt- he figured out a way to keep his escrima sticks there.
He opened the door to the room he'd been allotted and was met with the woman he'd been fighting out in the desert. She was wearing clothes of a similar cut and style to his own, she wasn't wearing a mask and Dick committed her face to memory. Tan, dark green eyes, straight nose and defined jaw, dark hair cut short.
"hi," Dick said, "uh, I think we got off on the wrong foot."
"that would be one way of saying it," she smiled, held a hand out, Dick shook it, "Alexandra."
"Dick, but you knew that."
Alexandra's face fell slightly, the kind smile replaced quickly.
She motioned to follow and Dick did, striding through the halls.
"how do you do with surprises?"
"what kind?"
"secrets," she said, watching his face, "things you don't know about."
"personal?" he asked.
She didn't even need to consider, "very."
Dick raised an eyebrow. He considered it. He'd gone through plenty of personal surprises in the past few days.
"I usually would say I'm good and I'd like to say it. but as of late, I haven't taken them well."
"truthful, that's honourable."
"well, it's how my father raised me."
Alexandra's face seemed to fall, he seemed to have hit a nerve. He filed that away for later.
"well, I would ready myself if I were you." Alexandra turned down a hall and walked up to a door. She stood by it, her stance mildly militant, she seemed to be high up the ladder of the league and well-trained if the fight he had with her was any indication.
The door opened, courtesy of two doormen who stood guard.
Dick and Alexandra walked in.
They were met with a dining room; a long dark-wood table, candle-esque chandeliers made of glass and warm-tinted light, three places set with fancy looking stuff with way less different types of cutlery than you would expect, a fancy rug stretched underneath. Thalia sat at the head, the other two places at either side. Dick took her left and Alex her right.
"where's your bird friend?" she asked.
"hunting, it's night time after all," he crossed his arms and stared at the food set out, he wouldn't touch it. not because it could be poisoned, but because of a degree of stubbornness, "I believe you promised me answers."
He also believed that it was strange Alex was present.
"yes," Thalia said, fingers hesitating over her fork, she raised her glass to her lips, "you want to talk about your father? Why would you come here for that?"
Dick levelled an unforgiving stare on her, "I stopped by Haley's circus."
Thalia's grip on her glass tightened.
"Oh?"
"Don't make me drag you to the conversation topic, you know what I want to know." Dick scowled.
Thalia sat her glass down, stared at it as if it would give her answers.
"Alex, could you-"
"no, my Lady," Alex said with a mildly disappointed smile, "this one's all you."
She sighed and mumbled, "why did I raise you this way?"
"cause you love to torment yourself."
"because, young lady," Thalia corrected.
Dick blinked. This Alex person was... raised by Thalia? That didn't sound very typical of the shadows.
Dick levelled a glare on Thalia, he wanted answers, and he wasn't going to herd her to them.
She gave him a sad look, "your father... yes, he used to work with us. He held a place of great honour- the personal guard of the Demon's Head. He left, he saw your mother in a performance and was transfixed on the spot."
Dick blinked, "he just... left? And you didn't try to hunt him down and kill him?"
"no. when you are of a high stature you have more freedom. And I vouched for him..." she drifted off, staring at anywhere but Dick, "he loved your mother, and I... loved him. Which meant I wanted him to be happy."
Dick stared at her, mouth agape, "I'm sorry, what?"
Thalia gave him a small smile, "surprised?"
"a little, yeah."
"then I'll mention that Alex is also your half-sister."
"WHAT?!"
Wally did not have safe houses and trust funds and hoodies of the perfect size to hide his face from cameras. He didn't have a motorbike and a grapplehook and an understanding of how to be utterly destroyed, brought to your bottom rung, and remake everything. He didn't have what Dick had and he didn't have what Batman had.
But he had himself, and that was all he needed in the end.
He graduated in about three weeks, but he'd already done all his assignments, finished everything, it was just the fancy parade and everything that had to occur, he'd get all the documents anyway, likely sent to his old address because the school hadn't changed it to his uncle Barry's.
So he noted that in the back of his mind as the one thing that would cause him to come back and packed. He had a license- something his mother forced him to get for reasons he didn't know- and a car, which meant he had plenty of room for stuff. It was the act of packing that would be difficult, because Barry could very easily find out.
Except he and Iris both had day jobs.
He called the school and told them he'd be staying home, that way they wouldn't call anyone about his absence. Then he pulled his car round the back of the house so none of the neighbours would see. He filled the boot with anything he wouldn't need while driving and the back seat with stuff he would want on hand.
The car was only a second-hand Mitsubishi hatchback sedan, dark magenta with a few scrapes and a dent on the back right. His mother had surprised him with it on his seventeenth.
He had mixed feelings about it. As he placed stuff on the back seat he was hit with the smell of the car freshener she had put inside the day he'd got it.
He'd driven it three times. Once when he got it, his mother smiling in the passenger seat and him feeling more freedom than ever, the open road stretching out as far as the eye could see. That was the only time he'd been happy while driving it.
The second time was to the hospital, after he got a call that his mother had been admitted by someone in the street. When he got there they said she'd been hit by a truck driver. Walked into the street without looking. His father said the same thing but with a lot more synonyms for idiot.
The third time was when he drove to the cemetery for her funeral. He refused to be in the same car as his father. Refused to stand next to him. Refused to speak to him. Refused to look at him. He got a black eye for it afterwards. Barry had stepped in before things got too hairy. After that he moved into his uncle's house.
Iris had driven the car to their place and parked it out the front, it hadn't been used since.
He preferred to run places, feel the wind, the exhilaration of the speed force and its energy zipping through him.
But he needed to use the car, it was the smart move.
So at 12:00, when all his neighbours were usually eating lunch or napping or watching TV, he drove away from his uncle's house in the car his mother bought him. Every piece of it haunted with her memory. He refused to let that memory be tainted by his father.
So he drove while thinking of her only.
He did not look back.
Years ago a man named John was the closest confidant of the Demon's Head himself. Ra's Al Ghul was guarded by a close friend, a tradition carried through the ages. The royal family of the League of Shadows always slept well, knowing their safety was in the hands of their guards. John looked after Ra's, and he himself had trained the man who had guarded Ra's daughter at the time, Thalia.
It was not completely unheard of for a member of the Demon's Head's family to have relationships with the headguards. Thalia was not the first to become interested. As Ra's heir she was expected to take the league one day, whether by force or by virtue from her father. A ruler had two main missions in life, to protect and oversee their people and to guarantee the strength of the next ruler.
Thalia had well and truly taken care of the second job already. There was a political side to creating or choosing an heir. They had to be strong, well trained. If they were not chosen specifically and instead the Demon's Head left it to a biological child, the partner had to be a good choice. Strong, capable and honourable in the League's eyes.
Thalia chose John, before they were even married or made official. It was against the rules but the two didn't care. They had a daughter, who took Thalia's name for three reasons. They were unmarried, John had no last name and Thalia was of higher stature. Hence Alexandra Al Ghul was christened.
But John had never truly loved Thalia. He had been smart enough to know not to object to her advances and he admired her, respected her. He had taken it to be the same thing as love, but when he met Mary Grayson he knew he had been wrong.
Thalia had vouched for him, and Ra's had allowed him to leave. On the condition that John's daughter stayed with the league and would grow to fill the position he was vacating.
So John left and Thalia stayed and she raised her daughter, Alexandra, to be Ra's future guard. Which meant she still had to choose an heir at some point.
Since, Alex had grown and trained. She was not yet Ra's guard, instead guarding her mother. One day she would rise to guard her grandfather, but till then the position fell to... someone else.
Richard Grayson was not born in the league, his mother was not associated with the league. But Thalia had still asked her father when his parents were killed. She had asked if she could take the boy in.
Ra's had said on one condition; no other had taken him. If Richard was not claimed within six months she could take him.
She was fine by that. John had come to her about the court, they were gone, they would not claim the boy.
But Batman had.
Thalia had considered Bruce Wayne an option for her heir. She'd given up on true love as her option and decided on practicality. But Bruce Wayne was not interested and Thalia had left him be, until he took in Richard.
"I didn't know what to say, how to say it, I couldn't decide," Thalia sighed, "so I decided to watch over you. One day I would tell you, but the longer it took the more worried I became of your reaction. So a secret it stayed."
Dick stared between Thalia and Alex, mind reeling.
Alex gave him a sad smile, took a sip from her drink. She had known. As soon as Thalia had said his name she had known.
'This is him? 'She had exclaimed, and Dick didn't know if he should be stung.
But there was one thing he did know, or rather one thing he knew he had to ask.
"Did Bruce know?" he watched Thalia's expression closely.
She closed her eyes as she sighed, "he knew about my connection to your father, he knew why I decided to watch you, and he knew that, if he had not taken you in, I would have and you would have been destined to become one of us."
Dick knew she was telling the truth.
Something in him crumbled, a final petal from a flower turned to dust, a small bit of hope left disappeared.
Whatever cliff he had been holding to, whatever last moral or guiding line Bruce had instilled in him he was keeping hold of, disappeared.
And he felt like he was falling again.
"and he never told me?" Dick stared at the plate before him. He felt like crying but at this point his body seemed used to the shock.
"I should have told you," Thalia breathed, "I'm sorry."
Dick grasped for anything. Some final thing to make him believe in the man who'd looked after him for years.
He came up empty. He fell, and there was nothing to grab onto.
Alex was silent, also staring at her own untouched plate. Thalia was silent, but she watched Dick with worry.
"why are you here, Dick? For answers, yes, but there must be some other reason. You could have called, I would have come to the manor-"
"Bruce tried to bench me," Dick said, finally looking up, "apparently I'm too emotional to be robin. I wanted to cool off, I didn't know if I'd come back..."
His voice faltered.
"I talked to Pop Haley, I just wanted to see a familiar face. He told me about some of this, I think he was just tired of me not knowing." Dick cleared his throat, "I don't want to go back anymore."
"I didn't think you would," Thalia said, "you're free to stay here as long as you want. I won't kid myself, you can handle yourself, I'm sure you can figure things out."
Dick pursed his lips, he wasn't so sure.
"and if you want..." Thalia faltered, seemed to reconsider her words, "no never mind. I'll let you decide things for yourself."
Alex snorted, "she's trying very hard."
Thalia gave her a long suffering stare.
"well it's appreciated," Dick said, taking a deep breath to stop himself from crying, "I came here just to understand, and I don't actually know where to go from here if I'm being honest."
Alex smiled, "you're a hero aren't you? Maybe you can hover around and stop some muggings," she teased.
"I'm sure I'll make a lot of difference." Dick rolled his eyes, "besides, I've never heard of any big-time heavy hitter villains around here. Just political and war stuff. Nothing on the league's list, and we're not allowed to get involved in international politics and stuff."
"well, you can stick around and I'll teach you how to properly use a sword," Alex offered, smiling over the rim of her glass as she raised it to her lips.
"look, I did okay for someone who never got formal training," Dick said, "besides, I could probably beat you with a bo staff."
"is that a challenge?"
"no," Thalia cut in before Dick could say anything.
"you're no fun," Alex grinned sideways.
Thalia sighed, "yes, twenty years of being a mother and I have always been focused on fun."
Alex stuck her tongue at her, quickly hiding it before her mother could properly see it.
Dick snorted and picked up his fork, finally taking notice of what was actually on the plate in front of him. Steamed rice with vegetables and sauce, pork dumplings and some kind of mashed sweet potato situation with spices.
"it's not poisoned," Alex said, taking a bite of her's to prove it, "and I made sure the chef didn't skimp on the spices cause you're American."
"I'm not-"
"ssh, it's bait don't take it," she snickered.
Dick stared out at the Gotham streets, neon lights an eyesore and traffic never wavering. It looked the exact same, it felt the exact same. The Robin uniform did not.
It had been shoved into the crammed edges of his bag as a last-ditch option if he needed it. he had his utility belt and other bits and pieces on hand, but the actual uniform and fancy stuff was stuffed away. He didn't necessarily want to suit up, but the situation kind of required it.
He needed to think and if possible he needed to talk to someone. Who was the question.
At first his thought on where to go next was pretty empty. He didn't actually have any open options. But then a few occurred to him. He could run off to the circus, even though Haley was worried about the court. He could always find a way to persuade him, if not he could try and get a contract or something with a different circus.
He could pick a city and start doing the hero thing around there, deciding how he did it himself.
Or... he could hang around the League of Shadows.
All considered at this point he was pretty done with Batman's no killing rule. Before it had seemed obvious, a guiding light of standards. Now... well. Some people just deserved death, some people were too dangerous to be left alive. Humanity itself wasn't great at determining who fit into the first category, but the second was usually pretty clear. The Shadows wanted power, sure, but they largely believed that everywhere else was fucking stupid and needed them to swoop in a fix things for them.
And Thalia had all but offered him the possibility...
But it was a bit of a quick 180, from hero to assassin. How was he sure this was actually what he believed in?
Except... everyone else seemed to think it was what he was.
As he moved throughout the Gotham streets, grappling from building to building with ease, he thought on how Bruce hadn't told him about Thalia.
He'd tried to bench him because he was emotional, so emotional that he was a-
He stumbled as he landed on a roof.
A threat. He was endangering everyone he was with. That's what Batman had said.
In other words, he was dangerous.
Bruce knew about his father, he knew about the fact that if things had gone a bit differently he'd have been an assassin. Dick didn't know if he was right, physically couldn't, but...
Bruce was trying to turn him into the next Batman, he was squashing out any sign of non-batman-ness as soon as it appeared.
He puffed out a breath, hands on his knees as he stared at the roof between his feet.
"oh, so your instinct is to kill people, now?"
Everyone seemed to think as much. Everyone seemed to think he was seconds from blowing, seconds from jumping off the deep end and becoming someone else.
Everyone else thought of him this way.
They thought he was born from monsters? Etched from an inhumane stone? Raised for ill will? Destined to become an outlaw?
He could show them an outlaw. If they wanted to give him a damn box he'd happily sit in it, and they could deal with the repercussions.
As he stood straight his fists clenched and he grit his teeth.
Oh, he was so over playing the good guy. So over tip-toeing around everyone else. Done with the rules. Tired of the statuses and the games.
He was over it.
Isabel fluttered nearby, a sign that someone was around. he noticed the shadow move before they spoke.
"kitten?"
Dick glared at the direction the voice came from.
Selina, suited up. Cat Woman didn't appear in Gotham a lot anymore, at least not how she used to.
She slid her goggles off her eyes onto her forehead as she materialised out of the shadows, staring at Dick with wide eyes.
"Dick where have you been?"
Dick didn't even bother pretending, "around. don't worry, I'll be out of your hair again quickly," he said, as he turned Selina hurried over.
"no, kitten, wait," she said, turning him around with a hand on his shoulder, "come home, we can talk about this."
"talk about what?" he asked, scowling.
"the warehouse, Zucco," she said, "please, think about this."
Dick brushed her hand off, "I've thought plenty."
Selina clenched her jaw, "Dick Grayson, turn around and talk to me, young man."
Dick scowled and whipped around to face her, "you want me to talk?!"
His hands turned to fists, "Bruce tried to fire me from the job I created, tried to take something away he had no right to control, and acted like he was surprised when I was angry! My parent's killer was let out of jail because of how he does his damn job, which makes me wonder, how many more people have been allowed to hurt others because he fucked about with a case?" Dick threw his hands about, "and then I find out that he's keeping secrets from me about my fucking family! We're supposed to be a team! I've been through hell the past week and he couldn't fucking care less!"
Selina sighed, "Kitten, I know Bruce is... difficult, but-"
"he's difficult, and I'm done with dealing with it," Dick scowled, "he had his chance, seven years of chances, I'm done dealing with him fucking everyone over and never being held accountable."
"but, look, I get it, I do. The thing about Bruce is he's..." Selina tried to find words, "look, we can figure out a way to deal with this. Bruce-"
"no, you don't get it Selina," Dick said, "this isn't about Bruce anymore. I decided to leave, so I did. Everything since has nothing to do with him."
Selina sighed, "Kitten, of course it has to do with Bruce."
"why does everyone think that it all comes down to Batman?!" Dick screamed.
"you're Robin!" Selina said, "of course it's about Batman."
Dick grit his teeth, every muscle taught, "fine. If that's how it always is," Dick hissed, he grabbed the mask on his face and threw it to the ground, "then I'll make it official," he unclipped the cape, tossed it at Selina, "I'm done," he tore off the gloves, unclipped the front of the overshirt, "I'm done, I quit, the hero gig?" he tossed it all to the ground, "I'M FUCKING DONE WITH IT!"
Dick unclipped his utility belt.
He threw it over the side of the roof.
"tell Bruce I said, 'fuck you'."
And he turned toward the fire escape and stormed off.