Chapter Text
For Tim, life begins and ends at a circus.
He barely remembers it really, wouldn’t remember it at all if not for the stretch of bodies seemingly made for flight and far more akin to avian movement than that of landlocked humans. Timothy Drake was a toddler when his parents took him to see Haly’s Circus, exactly twenty-five months old and certainly too young to have retained such vivid memories of the experience. In all honesty, most of it is a blur of bright lights and loud sound. The shadows were never so dark as to drown the swathes of color illuminating the couple soaring above the center ring, and the sound of Haly’s voice over the speakers was boisterous and proud, his exact words made unintelligible by the ravages of time.
Save, of course, for their names.
Tim was a child that night - smaller still - and he doesn’t remember everything, doesn’t remember most of it except in impressions. He can count the details that stuck on the fingers of one hand.
Blinding lights.
Unforgiving sound.
Colors too bright to bear.
He remembers the flash of the camera, taken an hour or so before the start of their act, little Timmy in an older boy’s arms, their cheeks squished together, the both of them smiling. He remembers the stage-lights an hour later, roaming the audience aimlessly before focusing higher, higher, higher still.
Tim remembers Haly’s voice, a showman’s tone and timbre, raised to project as the sound of a hundred drums echoed through the Big Top. He remembers the gasps, filled with awe and amazed disbelief and, closer to the end, horrified realization. Tim remembers the scream. Not the audience’s, no, just the one that mattered. He remembers the crunch.
He remembers washes of gold and red soaring above, not out of place amongst the scarlet roof of Haly’s tent, bold and beautiful. He doesn’t remember their faces, doesn’t remember the woman’s strawberry-blonde hair or the man’s blue eyes, but he remembers the lack of lively emerald (the way its absence was far from strange at the start but became so in the years following). How titillating the circus was, how breath-taking the Graysons were - art come alive on the trapeze - how natural they seemed in flight, like comets streaking across the sky, trailing fire and stardust. There was nothing of the earth about them.
(Where did the green come from?
Hm?
The green. Don’t get me wrong, you made it work, especially with the scales, but they never wore it. I imagine it would’ve been easier for everyone to figure out who the two of you were had you not added it. Is that why?
...My mother’s eyes were green.
Oh. )
He remembers the blood, gleaming beneath the lights and shades darker than their leotards, oozing so much slower than the imperial red that had darted through the air mere seconds prior.
Tim’s memories of that night stop there.
On pain of death, he can’t say much about how he processes the next few months but, for the following year, Tim’s parents keep him as close as they ever will. Two years-old and he already has a traumatic experience under his belt. Not exactly a thing to be celebrated, but more than enough reason to sequester and coddle their child.
John and Mary Grayson died in late May. Robin makes his debut in early December, welcomed by Gotham’s first snow. Tim is too young to investigate, too young to internalize the significance of a small child dressed bright enough to be both a stop-light and an easy target, but he understands the word ‘hero,’ if little else. Gotham, even Gotham, doesn’t quite move on from the ethics of it until news of a small skirmish with aliens (aliens!) far too close to the bay, that following spring.
Well, the aliens or Bruce Wayne’s scandal with an entire ballet company while his new ward was on a field trip through colonial heritage sites. He can’t be sure of which one got the gossip rags talking about other things besides Robin’s infantile stature in too-tight tights; three years-old didn’t make for the best memory retention.
It takes another six months before Robin action figures enter Gotham markets and two days after that for Tim to get his own.
(It’s limited edition and part of the first batch ever made, he still keeps it in a glass case.)
Tim is four when he figures out the password for the computer in his father’s office and stays up through the night watching grainy, 240p, videos of Robin’s viridian pixie boots disappearing above an alleyway or Robin’s laugh echoing inside the abandoned church close to the Narrows that’s a well-known front for illegal gun-manufacturing. He is five when he gets his first camera and five when his parents restart their habit of traversing the globe. Six when he spends long weeks alone in a family home too big and too quiet, and six when his nannies develop a roster to check on young Timothy Drake once a day while the rest skirt their duties and spend his parents’ money. Seven when he hits the streets in search of shadows with white lenses and stop-lights that laugh and bring wonder.
Seven years-old when Robin goes missing.
The date is October 19 when Tim notes his absence into his personal journal.
There’s no lead-up to it, no criminal chatter about a planned coup against the Gotham Bat (and Tim knows because he’s very good at following people - his nannies say he has no presence! - small enough to fit into places even Robin can’t squeeze, and a very, very good listener), and besides seeing hide nor hair of either of Gotham’s resident vigilantes that week, everything proceeds normally. It’s so unremarkable that Tim wouldn’t even be able to provide a near-exact timeframe for Robin’s initial disappearance, if not aided by the fact that Batman and Robin were very much vigilante-ing it up the night prior.
He’s certain it has to do with Superman’s disappearance in Metropolis, Green Arrow’s absence in Star, and Flash’s lack of gratuitous speeding in Central City that same week. His makeshift conspiracy board, lining the walls of his bedroom that his nannies no longer come into, only confirms it. Tim would agree with the news a fortnight later, when it’s officially-unofficially reported Robin went missing on the Justice League’s first space visit, but Tim knows Batman wouldn’t do that. Batman wouldn’t bring Robin to space when the boy still had a bedtime (3 a.m. on the dot) until very recently. But that’s what gets reported, that’s what Gotham and the rest of the world holds over Batman’s head after accusing him of dragging a minor into his crusade, and that’s what Batman wants people to think when he doesn’t arrive planet-side until the end of October.
Allegedly, anyways.
Tim would believe it, really he would! Batman’s grief-fueled rampage through the streets of Gotham is certainly convincing enough.
He gets caught following the ‘crazed’ vigilante in November and very nearly pees his pants. Batman growls at him to stay at home and off the streets, tells Tim he’ll check in on him at the Drake Estate every night for the next year, if that’s what it takes. Tim believes him; he stops going out. Batman drops him off in Tim’s decoy bedroom in the wing opposite his real one, and the seven year-old salutes him, waits until the length of his cape curls over the far hedge, then books it to his real bedroom to hide every incriminating picture and spool of red yarn.
His theories don’t end though, and neither does his doubt.
Because Tim would believe Robin disappeared in space!
He would!
But Dick Grayson was in his bed in Wayne Manor the night of October 19, sleeping peacefully, when the figure in black and gold took him.
Bruce Wayne returns from his corporate ‘business trip’ in Singapore - in truth, following an old flame, as the news reports salaciously - three days later. Batman waits till the end of the month to show himself but Bruce Wayne is back in business and a man who is not a man but an alien steps into Dick Grayson’s skin for the next three weeks. The impression is good, flawless enough that Tim never once sees a speck of Martian green, but ‘Dick’ smiles wrong. He attends his mathlete tournaments and answers every question perfectly, as he should, but he’s too eager. Dick Grayson would give his teammates a bit more time to come to the conclusion themselves.He attends galas at Bruce’s hip and charms all the ladies, never once throwing a glance at the table of food that the real Dick Grayson would much rather be at, than schmoozing with women far too old for him.
Tim is all of seven years-old, still too young to understand the hype surrounding girls and he thinks - knows, really - that with the exception of Batgirl (who is whip smart and definitely worth the hype) Dick was too.
Officially, Dick Grayson dies on a Mediterranean cruise around Thanksgiving. Gotham and the world over mourns a bright spark of life, snuffed out far too soon. Bruce Wayne releases his statement and isolates himself for months. Batman goes out every night.
His grief hasn’t lessened and few but the Joker poke with real intent, cautious of the wound that hasn’t healed. And, yeah, Tim’s sure some part of it is real. It has to be, Robin still went missing, even if the circumstances surrounding his disappearance are different from what’s claimed. But the way Batman’s going? His efforts, put into perspective with the knowledge Tim has, come off as desperately searching. Less so the concurrent rage of a loved one’s empty casket buried.
So no, Timothy Drake doesn’t believe Robin went missing in space because Timothy Drake has the picture to prove otherwise.
When the maids have gone home for the night and his nannies are tucked away in beds far removed from his own, Tim draws his curtains closed, enters his closet, and sits. Small hands wander in the dark, finding purchase with a mini-flashlight and a shoebox buried beneath a pile of sweaters. He digs out his secrets and drowns them in soft beams of white LED. Tim scratches lightly, nervously, at the edges of the print and, weeks after the fact, still doesn’t understand what he sees.
The image in this picture is indistinguishable. He was hidden in the trees when he took it, shrouded by a moonless midnight, and the only source of light in Dick’s room was the elephant nightlight he - faithfully - kept plugged in the corner farthest from his bed. Tim was wedged deep within the bramble, nowhere close to Dick’s window, but he’d ordered a pair of night vision goggles the month before and kept the second-story room in his line of sight. The figure creeping through the Wayne grounds was eerie, utterly other in how they moved. Different from Batman’s soundless force of a stride, different from even Dick’s naturally graceful, weightless gait. They moved like dread, the feeling growing uncomfortably in the pit of your stomach, slowly but surely. Present and unnassailable.
Tim had watched in silence, fixed in his perch by the conjoined influence of reason and emotion, logic and fear.
Gold glinted in the ambient starlight. Tim wasn’t close enough to hear it either way, but he doubted the figure opened Dick’s window with anything less than silent precision. The trees didn’t rustle with a passing breeze and Tim’s breaths had come so slightly he felt as if he’d entered a sleep from which there would be no waking. Amazingly, yet perhaps expectedly, Dick shot up in bed, the preternatural sense that had been trained into him forcing him to move likely before he knew why. He must’ve recognized immediately that he wouldn't be able to handle his assailant himself because it was a split second before Dick moved to throw a nearby lamp. The figure catches it in the air before it can shatter on impact and Tim sees a scuffle break out, Dick opening his mouth to scream when the intruder chokes the sound before it can escape and delivers a swift blow to the back of the twelve year-old’s head, in one quick motion. He doesn’t realize quite how large the cloaked invader is until they turn to exit from where they came, Dick’s limp form sagging over their right shoulder, smaller than Tim’s seen him in years.
He very nearly didn’t manage it but, blessedly, a breeze came as if answering his prayers and Tim’s shutter clicked as the leaves rustled.
The figure looked right at him.
Tim didn’t breathe.
The figure waits a whole minute, cocks their head to the side, and turns away, creeping back the way they came.
Tim hadn’t dared to follow.
Moonless it had been and dark had Dick’s assailant been clad, the picture Tim fingers in his grip is inky with it. All except for orange-yellow eyes. He doesn’t have the technology, nor the expertise, to get the rest of it enhanced, not yet.
Batman does.
Tim buries this picture beneath all the others and closes the shoebox. He fixes the pile of clothes back over the top, leaves his closet, and exits his room altogether. The flashlight remains switched on in his grasp and Tim is barefoot as he begins to walk down the hall, closing his bedroom with the slightest ‘click’.
He should go to Bruce Wayne. Tell Bruce what he saw, tell him he knows who he really is, and help him get his Robin back.
Tim drags his hand along the wall, careful not to get lost and enter the wrong room. So much time has passed since he’s walked down this way.
It’s been over a year since Robin’s disappearance, the streets are getting louder again, criminals coming out of the woodwork as Batman inevitably loses steam. He can’t keep going the way he’s been, the man’s been running himself ragged and Tim doesn’t need to be nine to know he’ll run himself into the ground, at the rate he’s going.
The door is closed, as it always is, as it has been for four months; the last time its occupants had bothered to visit.
Tim should go to Batman, needs to go to Batman, and damn the consequences when he finds out how long Tim had been following the duo, how long he’d sat on this very important part of the puzzle of the Boy Wonder’s whereabouts.
But.
He steps into the bedroom, closes the door after him, and digs another secret out.
Tim should pay a visit to Bruce Wayne, give Bruce the picture so he can see for himself what Tim had witnessed but-
But.
There’s a white mask hidden in the back of his parents’ dresser.
The first time Tim meets the Parliament, he is a newborn. It’s his debut and his parents will show him off to polite society a month later but for now, the society that actually matters gets first peek.
“Well-done,” They tell his mother.
“An heir it is,” They tell his father, clapping him on the back.
By all means, Tim’s parents aren’t devout members of the Court, but they pay their respects. It’s tradition. The Drakes aren’t as old as Gotham itself, haven’t been here since it was just a group of huts near the bay - not the way the Waynes have been, not the way half of these families have been. No, not at old as them at all, but old enough. They came with the merchant ships and so, built a comfortable little empire for their own selves, as the years passed. Not quite blue-blooded but not so far off.
Jack and Janet don’t believe in it, much. It’s easy enough to ignore when they’re gallivanting off to the other side of the world, but Gotham’s claws never retract without injury. She tears a piece of you in the release. Ragged flesh and free-flowing blood form a grotesque little chain and even when the claws have gone, the leash remains. The Court of Owls is an organization built upon tribute and there are none of Gotham who are free from the toll.
Timothy Drake isn’t a perfect baby but he’s a Drake and a boy and this is enough.
Janet’s arms are purposefully loose where they hold her sleeping newborn for predators behind porcelain masks to judge his worth. She loves her husband, she is Gotham’s through and through. Jack hovers nearby, not too close and not too far, nodding amiably as empty people pay their respects with barbed words and clipped tongues. He loves his wife, he too is Gotham’s through and through. The couple met as fellow students in the Archaeological Department of Gotham University, two people who understood each other early on, and married young before fleeing their godforsaken city at the drop of a hat. Janet wasn’t meant to fall pregnant, not yet, not so soon, but the Court’s forgiveness has short limits and the Drakes are old enough to be counted among them.
Needs must.
Still. Timothy Drake isn’t a perfect baby but he is Janet and Jack’s, they love him, and this is enough.
Their bags are already packed, their flight booked, they do this one thing and then they leave. They raise little Timothy on the other side of the globe, far away from Gotham, far away from the talons of owls. The respects come to an end and the real Parliament commences. They sit through, patient, courteous, the perfect picture of obedience, and, when it is finished, they leave. Their bags are packed, their tickets close at hand, the family of three even closer, but the flight is grounded before it can take off. A mishap with one of the wheels, the airline reports.
The message rings clear enough.
They do their best to keep Tim’s...run-ins with the Court as limited as is reasonable and proper. The Drakes are Gotham’s but they aren’t important enough and as such, certain absences are acceptable, with the condition that little Timothy never leave with his parents when they venture outside of the city.
Janet and Jack last four years before something fractures.
Tim’s oldest nanny, the one that’s been with his parents the longest, dresses him up in his nicest suit every second Saturday of the month. They take a car to a weathered old factory on the northernmost end of the city and disappear inside. They never come out the way they came.
Ms. Arina gives him a porcelain mask to cover his face before they meet the others. Tim doesn’t quite get the point of it, not when the other adults always seem to know who he is regardless, but the routine never falters, or changes. His parents aren’t home this month so it’s just the two of them again. They sit some ways away from the dais but remain within immediate sight and always in the front. During these meetings, Ms. Arina’s rules for Tim are as follows:
- Remain Silent At All Times Unless Addressed.
- Do Not Fidget.
- Never Look The Grandmaster In The Eye.
The first two he understands, but the last never makes much sense. It’s not as if their masks have any obvious eyeholes anyway, they see well enough, but it’s not really possible to tell if someone’s looking at you unless their whole head is facing your way. Perhaps it’s just that Tim hasn’t mastered the technique, yet.
A person clad in an all-white ensemble takes their seat behind the dais, unmistakably the head of the whole assembly, and, from here on out, nothing fits the routine.
“Talon,” The Grandmaster speaks simply.
Ms. Arina stiffens in her seat and Tim takes note of it, eyeing the older woman curiously. Tim knows the rhyme, has mostly connected its verses with these monthly gatherings, but he’s never seen one before. Not yet. Not till now. He edges forwards, peeking down into the lowered platform and promptly ceases all motion.
It’s the same, they’re the same. A few weeks have passed since the incident but Tim knows they’re the same. The muscle-mass is sizable enough, a good match, though for obvious reasons, he doesn’t have an exact measurement. Gold accents shine beneath the light of the large hall, swooping over wide shoulders and swallowed by pitch-black material. Eerie yellow-orange light glares from within opaque goggles, a masked face tilted downwards in reverence. Tim takes care to exhale slowly, doing his best not to panic and disobey Ms. Arina’s first two rules.
The Grandmaster raises their voice to speak again.
“How is the child?”
“Unbroken, Grandmaster. Wayne trained him well.”
A hum.
“And Wayne’s training has been allowed, until this time, as it was favorable for our cause. But I will not have the Gray Son outlast you any longer, see to it that he is broken soon.” The 'Or there will be consequences' goes silent but understood.
“Yes, Grandmaster.”
Tim can’t help it, he fidgets. Ms. Arina’s hand comes down on his bouncing leg in a vice-grip and he barely holds in his whimper. The figure - Talon, it’s a Talon, perhaps even The Talon seeing as they’re the only one that came forward at the Grandmaster’s call - accepts his silent dismissal and disappears from sight.
“What news?”
Voices rise from around him, one at a time, ever so proper and respectful and completely subservient but Tim locks himself in his seat - still as stone - and drowns them out. He doesn’t register getting up when the assembly is finished, doesn’t register Ms. Arina ushering him out with the others until the Grandmaster stops them.
This one is tall, maybe a little shorter than the other one Tim had seen a year or so prior, but taller than even Ms. Arina, still. There’s not much more to distinguish them since he’s never seen their face but the voice is higher too, even through the modulator. Flat-chested, but then, all of them are made so, to hide the gender; this one could be a woman, she might even be one of his other nannies. Except he’s heard the others say Ms. Arina is the only one of the lot from a ‘worthy Gotham line’, whatever that means, so that’s doubtful.
“And how do you fare, Timothy?” The latest Grandmaster’s words resound in an idle drawl, as they tower over him.
Two other members of the court flank them and, adding Ms. Arina to the list, four porcelain masks stare down at Tim. They are the exact opposite of human faces in their effect, he thinks. Smooth and unwrinkled, unforgiving as nothing about them shifts or gives to reveal any of their wearer’s thoughts. No color, no life. Nothing humane about them, just cold, soulless porcelain.
Tim looks just to the left of where he guesses the Grandmaster’s eyes are, careful to obey at least the last of Ms. Arina’s rules in the hopes of gaining some form of clemency later. “I am well enough, Grandmaster.”
“Your parents? In Bolivia, last I heard, yes?”
“I believe so, Grandmaster.”
“And have you told them about your visit to Wayne manor?”
The question sounds innocuous enough and the Grandmaster’s tone remains idle, unbothered. Tim is seven and still smarter than a fair number of adults but he is also young and afraid. The subtle, wry amusement behind the Grandmaster’s reply goes unnoticed. As does the sudden surprise in Ms. Arina's stiff frame. Tim is too far in his own head to register either properly.
He has never been to Wayne manor, not officially. Bruce Wayne stopped holding galas there sometime after acquiring Richard, citing the provision of privacy for his young ward, and his parents weren’t in Gotham before Tim’s birth.
Of course, of course the Talon recognized him.
He swallows, pushing down the urge to shift his weight.
“No, Grandmaster.”
Silence reigns over the small group, seconds pass into minutes, minutes into hours, hours into days. It’s as if all of time has come this way just to gawk and giggle at Tim’s expense. Logically, he knows it can’t have been more than a few minutes but the painful awkwardness seems to drag the moment far longer.
“Well then,” The Grandmaster begins in a low, conspiratorial, whisper. “We shall have to keep it our little secret.”
I see you, Child. I see you so clearly. Be very careful, your blood isn’t blue enough to save you from my ire.
Tim doesn’t shake but it’s a near thing.
“Yes, Grandmaster.”
I won’t tell.
The Grandmaster stares at him for another minute, Tim still resolutely looking just to the left of meeting their gaze. A gloved hand comes up to ruffle his hair above his mask. “You are a smart one, aren’t you? Such a sweet boy.” The hand retreats beneath the Grandmaster’s cloak, the only black article of clothing on them, and the trio of owls leaves him and Ms. Arina behind.
They leave by a different way and, back in his family home, Tim stares at his closet and doesn’t go near it for a week.
He doesn’t actually see Dick until shortly after celebrating his tenth birthday, completely by chance. An assembly is called the following week, the usual date moved up by several days to accommodate a grand showing as the completion of the Gray Son’s first phase of training. It's a momentous occasion. He asks Ms. Arina if they can arrive just a little earlier, in hopes that Dick might already be there - waiting - that Tim might have more time to memorize his growth. She squints at his enthusiasm, suspicious, but inevitably gives in.
The boy’s eyes are still blue, proof he hasn’t undergone the full procedure yet, but he’s morose, entirely obedient to the Owls and to Talon. Cobb, Tim learned, his name is William Cobb and he is Dick’s great grandfather. Dick seems to live and breathe for the man and, in the wake of a spar to show how far he’s come, he bears Cobb's hits with nary a whimper nor a grunt. Tim misses his sounds though, the little noises Dick would make when he was teasing Batman on the field. He especially misses Robin’s laugh.
But it’s fine, this is enough. For now, he’ll take the sight of Dick fighting in front of him, over the years of nothing.
His good fortune continues when the official proceeding ends. (It can hardly be called a celebration, the way they merely stand, stare, and clap primly at the end, all of them proud of a weapon none of them shaped themselves. Tim doesn’t clap, but he beams down at Richard from behind his mask.) The Owls filter into another room, one of the ones Tim’s never been allowed into before, and Dick waits there, along with Cobb and the other - less human - Talons.
Dick hasn’t changed from his previous outfit, a version of Cobb’s suit, though unadorned and maskless. His blades have been taken from him, less a cautionary measure and more to a serve a point, that even the Court of Owl’s greatest weapon is nothing but a declawed fledgling in the face of his masters. A servile beast. Dick keeps his gaze forward, eyes present and distant all at once. He’s taller than Tim remembers, probably close to 5’8 as opposed to his 5’1 upon initial disappearance. Tim looked at the records, John Grayson was 5’10 and Dick looks like he’ll keep growing. They have a few more years, the Court will let Dick remain mostly human until his height peaks. It makes sense to let their best Talon finish his growth period before preserving his likeness eternally. An extra couple inches adds to range of motion, as well as physical strength. The enhancements will come of course, as Cobb’s were given to him, but it’s preferable to first achieve perfection, and then endeavor beyond it.
Owls come and go as they please, remarking on their other assassins and Cobb’s latest performance with the murdered heiress two nights before, but Dick draws the largest crowd. He always has, in most settings.
Ms. Arina won’t move far from the entryway. It’s expected for them to be here but she’s never liked being around any of the Talons, Tim thinks it has something to do with the whispers of one of her brothers dying under their blades. He’d rather observe them for all their worth. It’s fascinating how far the human body can be altered to fit their purposes. Besides, Dick is one of them now and Tim, well Tim misses Robin every day, but Richard is still in there and Tim needs to know how far he has to dig to get to his secrets.
He’ll never believe Cobb’s training has killed every last semblance of Grayson, in him. Maybe eventually, just maybe. But not yet.
Tim scurries from Ms. Arina’s side and dodges her arm as it stretches to halt him. A backward glance reveals an aborted motion to follow. She won’t, she’s still paralyzed by memory. He’ll be punished for this later but Tim needs to do this, he needs to do it now.
He squeezes through the mass of bodies surrounding Richard, extremely aware of the derisive comments that follow him. Tim is rude, improper, more heathen in him than what befits a Gotham heir. All of this is fine. The ten year-old stops a few inches from barreling into Dick’s legs. Their eyes do not meet, Dick does not look down. Tim looks up, memorizing light gray veins creeping over the neck of the older boy’s suit. Gray, not yet black. Enough to heal, not enough to turn. Ebony locks sit on his head, as wild as Tim remembers, but Dick’s skin has lost some of its golden glow.
It’s been years since they’ve let him outside. The Gray Son isn’t allowed to see daylight or moonlight until he’s perfect, ready. Batman prowls the streets and the Court will not risk it. Not when Bruce had already delayed Dick’s original acquisition by five years and the last Grandmaster nearly revealed all of them in his haste to rectify it. His successor understands the virtue of patience much better.
Tim’s going to be punished for this, more to add to what he’s already incurred, but it’s a necessary part of his plan. He’s done the math; at the very least, it’s not an offense worth killing the Drake’s only child for.
He takes off his mask.
Dick doesn’t stiffen but he does hesitate. He glances down.
Tim remembers April, several seasons back. He remembers Dick Grayson, twelve years old with a broken leg, hobbling through the halls of Gotham Academy and Tim getting himself lost from the rest of his tour group just to have an excuse to say hi. Dick found him on one of the benches outside, introduced himself all bright and kind-like, and they talked. They just talked. Tim didn’t want to go in yet and it was entirely because he wanted Dick to convince him, hopefully before Tim’s teacher realized one of her charges was missing. Dick was nice, had always been, so Tim mentions his mostly-empty family home. He mentions his parents who are always away and finds that the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes aren’t entirely faked. The Waynes are high-society and everyone who's anyone knows the Drakes prefer traveling the world to raising their child. Dick barters a visit for Tim to let him take him inside. Tim remembers accepting, taking the offered hand that Dick wasn’t using to support his crutches, and the two of them finding Tim’s group.
His teacher had been scared out of her mind. Ms. Arina was furious.
But no one turns down a Wayne, especially not the apple of Bruce’s eye, and so Dick was welcomed into their estate the next day. Tim showed him some of his pictures (the mundane ones of course, not the ones that gave off stalker vibes) and they just - hung out. Dick visited a few more times that year, and then stopped when one coincided with Tim’s parents coming home early. Something must’ve happened, either his father or his mother must’ve done something, made Dick feel uncomfortable somehow - like he was overstepping, which Tim finds odd given his parents had never cared so much about visitors before, evidently it only mattered when it was Tim’s friends - because Dick stopped coming over. In hindsight, they probably didn’t appreciate the reminder of who Dick was, what he would be, but when Tim asked (because of course he asked, he was five not stupid) they said it wasn’t good for him to be so close to the subject of his early trauma.
Tim takes off his mask and Dick looks down.
An innumerable amount of eyes bear down on them but clear blue are the only ones that matter to both Dick and Tim, in this moment.
He wonders if Dick feels betrayed, or if it’s just shock he feels. Perhaps not even that, perhaps just dull acceptance. That even the small child Dick had babysat once or twice is involved in his twisted fate somehow. His thoughts are interrupted.
“Timothy Drake,” The Grandmaster begins, gliding towards them as the crowd parts. “Breaking the taboo so soon, are we? The insolence starts younger and younger.”
Dick bows his head, as do the rest of the Talons.
“I’m sorry, Grandmaster. I wanted a better look.”
Tim doesn’t need to see the Grandmaster’s eyes to know they must tick in frustration. Slowly, he returns his mask to its place. The Grandmaster stops walking to hover over him, aura oppressive as Tim averts his gaze to land on a suited shoulder.
“And what have you discovered about our Gray Son?”
“That he has been trained well, Grandmaster. As you have commanded.”
“Did you hear the child, Cobb? He compliments your efforts.” Their tone is flat, unimpressed. “Naive of him, I think, but children often are.”
A hand lands on Tim’s head and the Grandmaster’s fingers remain lax in obsidian hair. They don’t need to exert physical force to keep the threat crystal clear. It has never been needed, not when there are at least thirty assassins in this room that would murder Tim with less than a word.
He accounted for this.
It’ll be fine.
“The Gray Son is far from perfect, Timothy. Perhaps you and your chaperone should retire, so that your eyes may rest and discern one’s worth better.”
The ensuing silence is louder than a freight train. Tim opens his mouth to-
“Grandmaster-”
The Grandmaster’s head swipes left, gloved fingers seizing involuntarily on top of Tim’s head.
“Strike him.”
Dick’s jaw makes an awful cracking sound where Cobb’s arm impacts his face.
No.
No.
Dick wasn’t supposed to come to his defense. There was nothing to defend from, Tim had it all in control. He was going to agree and then leave, and yes be punished, but he could bear it. It would’ve been fine. Dick stopped being so rebellious within his first year of training, he’d learned - or at least learned to hide his spirit better - regardless, his record was perfect. Tim’s plan was perfect, why would he-
“You dare,” The Grandmaster says lowly.
It isn’t a question.
Dick holds his tongue, whether from the pain of his broken jaw healing back into place or the memory of expected etiquette, Tim isn’t sure. The hand in Tim’s hair tightens. He keeps his whimper to himself.
“Five days in the boiling pool,” They sentence. “You are dismissed.”
Tim’s mind whites out.
Five days. Five days drowning, over and over again, in scalding water. He’s never seen it but he knows what it is, has heard the screams sometimes, on their way to the usual assembly room. How long has it been since Dick last-
Dick bows, rises, and exits the room without showing his back.
The Grandmaster’s hand lifts from Tim’s hair. The ten year-old registers Ms. Arina coming to stand beside him, her figure tense. If Tim's mind were present, he might feel bad for forcing her to come so close to her fears; neither Cobb nor the other Talons have moved to leave just yet.
“Remove your mask in my presence again, Timothy, and I will have it molded to your flesh.” The words are hard and cold, every syllable pronounced carefully.
“Yes, Grandmaster.”
White sweeps the edges of his vision, followed by every Owl and Talon. Ms. Arina drags him from the hall with her nails drawing blood where they dig into his thin wrist. They don’t leave the way they came and, back at his family home, Tim turns away meals for as long as Dick’s punishment lasts. Ms. Arina didn’t make it through the night and he writes his parents about the feather he finds near her mangled corpse.
They do not come home.
He briefly debates showing Bruce his well-guarded secret. Tim is angry enough, in this moment, to send the picture to Wayne Manor under a pseudonym, just to see what becomes of it. His life be damned, if Dick is freed, then it will have been worth it. But the chances of an unprepared Bruce succeeding against the full might of the Court is low and the world changes after the week of his tenth birthday.
Batman gains another junior partner - not Robin, not this time, that much is still sacred it seems - and so Tim keeps quiet, keeps silent. Shrike is so much less than his predecessor. Tim stops observing them together after the first month.
So what if Batman’s moved on? He won’t, Tim won’t. He’s met Dick now, years of waiting and he’s finally seen the other boy again. Batman isn’t taking him from him, not when he’s so clearly found his first ward a replacement, however lacking he may be. The Court will need to change soon but Tim isn’t old enough to execute his plans, so he waits.
After all, Grandmasters come and go. None of them are irreplaceable.
Late at night, he thinks he hears Dick’s screams. The imagined sizzle of burning skin and the gurgle of boiling water entering delicate lungs doesn’t spare his ears.
He plans and waits.