Past revealed

From the tone of Batman's voice the team could already tell that the subject was serious

"Where is Black bat? Shouldn't he hear this too?" Zatanna asked also wondering where her boyfriend was and why he wasn't with his parents

"That is the reason we have come to talk to you about" Batman spoke "Last night shortly after we returned to the batcave we told Black Bat that we thought it was a good idea if he retired from the hero business"

"WHAT?!" wally yelled, even though the rest of them were shocked as well they didn't yell about it "You can't do that he's the best fight hero out of everyone on the team!"

"I agree Batman" Kaldur stepped up "Although he has not been at his best lately I believe once he has recovered from his illness that he can get back to his usual fighting skills"

Zatanna was horrified if he wasn't allowed to be a hero anymore then how were they supposed to continue their relationship, she didn't even know his secret identity so she wouldn't be able to see him out in public either

"We know and it was a mistake to tell him that because right after we told him he became furious with us for even suggesting it" Batwoman sighed

"I don't blame him" Conner crossed his arms as she continued

"We told him that our decision was final and he became so angry that he stormed out of the batcave on his motorcycle, when he didn't return in less than two hours…..we became worried that he might have gotten sick again and crashed somewhere" Selina wished they had decided to go after him right away

"So he's missing?" artemis asked

"He is but we know exactly who took him"

"So what are we standing around here for! We have to go and save him!" Zatanna yelled

"it's not that simple" Batman yelled "First of all we don't even know where he is all we know is who took him" silencing the team "When Batwoman and I went to go search for him we did find his motorcycle that he had abandoned probably deciding to walk instead. But when we went to the signal of the tracker in his utility belt…..He had been in an alley at the time of his kidnapping for some unknown reason when he was cornered by Talons" Pulling up an image of a Talon from the Court of Owls on the holographic computer behind him

"Hey that's…" Wally began but Batwoman cut him off

"This is an image of a Talon soldier for a group of assassins called the Court of Owls"

"What would they want with Black Bat?" Zatanna eyes began watering thinking of the danger her boyfriend was in with these assassins

"Black Bat never wanted any of you to know about his past because it has a massive criminal record"

The teams eyes widened especially artemis's "Why would you two get him involved with criminals, you're supposed to be heroes and you let your own son become a criminal?!"

"We wish that were true" Batwoman spoke getting confused faces from them "But black bat is not our biological son" surprising them, black bat had always called them his parents, Mom and Dad, so why would he call them that if they weren't his real parents "He is adopted"

"Why didn't he ever tell me?" Zatanna asked, her own parents were gone so why would he never tell her that his parents weren't his real parents

"He despises his actual family, he doesn't even refer to them as his family instead calling them by their names" Batman changed the image on the holographic computer to a poster of The Flying Grayson's of Haley's Circus, and another image of Richard Wayne

"Haley's Circus?" Wally looked at the poster "I used to love going there as a kid, they always had the best acts in any circus I had ever seen"

"Yeah me too" Before her training had begun artemis mother had taken her and jade to the circus a lot to see the show "The kids there were like real professional it made me kid of jealous of them to tell you the truth"

"The circus is not as innocent as it looks" Batman growled "There is nothing to be jealous about the children who worked there, I sincerely doubt any of them even know the truth either" the chosen talon had already been decided for this generation

"What does Richard Wayne have to do with anything?" M'gann asked, why would they be showing an image of the Prince of Gotham at a time like this

"Richard Wayne is the secret identity of Black bat" Batwoman confessed shocking them

Zatanna's eyes widened thinking back to Black Bat in her mind and looking to the image of Richard on the holographic screen, they did have similar facial features and she had never seen his eyes before but now she could see that they were the purest cerulean blue eyes she had ever seen. Black Bat's hair was always a mess but Richard's was perfectly combed and gelled, she then looked down to the tiffany's bracelet she had on her wrist and now it made sense how he could have afforded it, he was from a Multi-billionaire family

Artemis was complete shocked that her friend at Gotham Academy was also her friend on the team as Black Bat, there was no way she could have made the connection because Richard always spoke with an accent and Black bat didn't, she did know it was possible to do that but still….even though Richard was athletic he had never shown that he was a fighter either.

"Wait" she called getting everyone's attention "If Black bat is Richard Wayne then that would have to mean that you two are…" looking to Batman and batwoman "Bruce and Selina Wayne" she had never actually met them in person since whenever she went to the mansion they weren't home

"Yes" they nodded taking off their cowls revealing the faces of the Multi-billionaire couple

"Why are you telling us this?" Raquel asked speaking for the first time

"Because our secret identities would have to be reveal to explain why Black bat or Richard was taken by the Court of Owls" Selina said

"So he's not your biological son?" Artemis asked and she nodded "Then what happened to his real parents"

"Dead"

"Oh I'm so sorry"

"Don't be they had it coming" she crossed her arms shocking them

"Richard's is originally from a Haley's Circus, he along with his former family were one of their acts called The Flying Grayson's" batman motioned to the poster "When he was six years old though a mob boss by the name of Tony Zucco came to try and extort money from the circus but the circus owner refused saying he ran an 'honest business' and would not lower himself to receive protection from criminals. As revenge for not paying zucco had the wires of the trapeze sabotaged so during the show while the Flying Grayson's were performing the wires came lose making all of them except Richard fall to their deaths"

Artemis though back to when she was still a little girl and remembered hearing a news report that involved the circus but she didn't pay much attention to it since she didn't really care for current events back then

"Richard was devastated when his the Grayson's died, he told Commissioner Gordon about Tony Zucco because he had seen him going out of the ten just before the show, I had met him that night because I was in the audience, none of the other circus performers or workers were willing to take him in"

"That's weird" Raquel put her hands on her hips "He had grown up there so why wouldn't they want to take him in if they had known him his entire life"

"I was suspicious of that as well, when I went to help Richard get packed to leave I had decided to talk to Haley about Tony Zucco but I had overheard a conversation he was having with someone over the phone that they would be coming for Richard very soon and it did not sound pleasant"

"But you guys got to him in time right? I mean he's here with us fighting crime and lives a happy life in Gotham with you" Conner motioned to the picture of Richard on the screen

Batwoman shook her head "After Richard left the circus he was taken to the Juvenile Detention Center"

"JUVIE!" Zatanna and Wally yelled at the same time. Zatanna was horrified that he had gone to jail but from what she had heard so far he hadn't committed any sort of crime so why would he be placed there

"How…Why?!" Wally asked

"The social worker who was assigned to his case was also a Romanian Racist" Batman gritted, the team had concluded on their own that Richard was Romanian "And because of that she felt it was best that he was placed there"

"Is that even legal?!" Raquel asked

"It was at the time" Bruce had made sure that there was now a law against that

"Once Bruce had told me he was planning to adopt Richard I agreed that he deserved a good home, we had gone to visit him once while he was there with a therapist that had been helping him. We could tell that the other inmates weren't the kindest people he should be around, he was badly beaten and bruised, because he didn't know how to fight at the time he was unable to defend himself"

Conner got angry at that, his friend had gone through such a traumatic past "Where is that social worker!"

"She is no longer a social worker, we had our lawyers put a case against her for what she had done and she was fired from CPS" the team smiled that the woman could no longer do that to any other children "we don't know what happened to her after that though"

"But once we received word that we would be able to adopt Richard it was already to late" Bruce sighed "That night the talons broke into the Juvenile Detention Center and kidnapped Richard, Killing and injuring an amount of people in the process"

"That still doesn't explain why he was taken last night! How did he even get involved with assassin's? he was just a simple circus performed right?" Zatanna asked, when she had been six years old she had been playing with her dolls but her boyfriend was…

"The Circus is not as innocent as it looks" Batman repeated his earlier line "Shortly after Richard was kidnapped I had learned that the circus was actually involved with his kidnapping" shocking the team "Long before any of us were even born the circus had made a contract with The Court of Owls, in exchange for funding and protecting the circus they would have to give them any child they chose to be the next Talon that would carry on their business"

"And….Richard was…" Zatanna eyes widened

"He had been chosen because of his superior skills, the talons had decided he would be their heir a year before the Grayson's death"

"Why would his parents do that to him?" Wally yelled "Why didn't they run?! They could have gotten help from the police or the league even! They should have protected him!"

"Any parent should have done that for their child but not these people" Selina growled, sure if she and bruce had been in their place that would have been exactly what they would have done with Richard 'Protect him' "Richard had told us shortly after he had arrived at the court they had told him that none of the parents of the children at the circus ever really cared for their children, it was all an act, they're only job was to raise these children until they choose one to be their heir. He was even shown a contact they had made with John and Mary Grayson proving they had given the court full ownership of him like he was property"

"Is that circus still in business?" kaldur growled

"Yes unfortunately"

"What?!" Raquel yelled joining kaldur's at his side

"Even though this is all going on behind closed doors, the circus is still very popular to the community and we do not have any power to put them out of business"

"Then tell the world what's really going on!" M'gann yelled, those children were still in danger

"We would but that would also mean sending Richard to jail for the rest of his life!" Selina yelled shocking them, they did want to protect all of those children but it would also mean saying goodbye to their son "We would have to explain how we learned about this through dick"

"How long was Richard with the court?" Artemis asked

"Over two years" Bruce sighed "We tried out best looking for during the time but we never came across anything concrete, even with the league's help in searching for him it was as if he simply vanished, he had later told us that he was not aloud outside the base compound during the time so that is why nobody ever saw him. During the time he was being trained to become an assassin which was deadly but he never said he didn't life the result"

"Does Ivo have anything to do with this?" Wally asked remembering all the times he and Black bat had come in contact

"Yeah, he and Richard seemed to know each other somehow" Zatanna remembered the small conversation during his interrogation at Belle Reve

Selina nodded "Yes, Richard was actually a student of his during his assassin training, Ivo taught him mostly everything he knows about engineering when he was 7 years old"

Zatanna's eyes widened, she had thought it was batman who taught him how to build such amazing machines like that, he had built a new and improved Meca-batsuit right in front of her but he had been taught to do that by a criminal

'That actually makes a little sense' Wally thought, once they had defeated Amazo black bat had known exactly how to dismantle him so quickly he had thought it was because he knew so much about robotics but now it was because he knew Ivo himself

"Nobody but the Talons and Ivo had seen Richard for those two years until he was finally let out into the field on his first mission" Dick had told them that that mission was not the first time he had killed, his training involved practice for it and that included killing actual living people "We didn't see him but once we caught word of the killing, I had gone down to the harbor to investigate and found signs of the Talons"

"H-h-how….m-many?" Zatanna fidgeted

"Dick hates himself for doing these things, but it was the only thing he knew at the time, he thought the talons were the only people who actually wanted him after he learned his own family had sold him, so in order to please them he killed without hesitation"

The team looked to each other for a bit looking a little troubled now that they had found out their friend was once a murderer

"The people he had killed that night at the harbor were also drug dealers" the team turned back to Bruce "the amount was 12 men, they had all been killed in a little less than 20 minutes. I had found out it was Richard who had done that from security footage of the only child talons there should be doing it. After that I had gotten the league to report any sighting of him and to try and bring him in"

"Richard didn't understand what we were trying to do for him, he had thought we wanted him to come with us because we wanted to know the base's location and then send him to jail for his crimes. Superman was the first to actually talk to him" Selina told the m shocking them

"He tried to kill superman!" Conner yelled, even if he was a trained assassin he couldn't take on someone of his caliber

"No" Bruce shook his head "You will be very surprised by this, but because of that mission Superboy, you were able to be born" conner's eyes widened

"Wh-what?"

"Lex Luthor had gone to the Court of Owls base and had personally asked of them to retrieve Superman's Dna so that he could be cloned which obviously resulted in your being born. Richer had to fight superman with some other talon's help but he had gotten the sample of his Dna himself and gave it to luthor"

"So without him I would have never…" Conner rubbed the back of his head

"Why didn't he ever say anything?" M'gann asked

"Because it would lead back to explaining his assassin past"

"Another mission he was sent on also involved Flash" Bruce said getting wally's attention "He was sent to retrieve a computer chip from Star Labs facility in central city, when he was heading back to the rendezvous point flash approached him"

"Uncle Barry never told me he had met Black bat before" wally muttered

"Flash tried to persuade him into coming back to the Hall of Justice with him and Richard was going to go with him.." That got their attention

"So why didn't he?" Kaldur asked he could just picture Richard reaching for flash's hand in his mind

"Because at the last moment flash said Richard could tell us where the base was" Bruce shook his head, dick could have been saved then if flash hadn't said that

Richard pulled his hand back in kaldur's mind and received groaned from the team "Idiot" one of the muttered

"Once flash said that Richard became furious feeling like he had been fooled once again, like flash was pretending that he actually cared about him, so shot him several times in the legs to keep him from stopping his escape"

Wally tried to think back to that night, even though they were fast healers there had to be some sign that Uncle Barry had been shot, he faintly remembered seeing Barry had some pain in his legs and when he asked why he had simply said he was stopping a few robbers and they had gotten a few shots in

"He never came in contact with my father right?" Zatanna asked, surely he would have told her if he had had anything to do with an assassin

"No but we did ask Zatara several times to try and locate Richard with one of his spells but he could only pinpoint that he was in Gotham the entire time. Zatara had also told us that Richard did not feel normal anymore, like he had somehow become a meta" Selina thought back to that conversation

"But Black Bat doesn't have powers…right?" Zatanna asked surely she would have noticed something like that

"No the reason behind that meta sense was because, before he was with the talons Richard's blood type was O-negative" Selina told them getting m'gann's attention because that had also been Garfield's blood type in qurac, why didn't black bat offer a blood transfusion from himself then "But during his training Richard had told us that they had induced a serum called Electrum into his blood stream altering it"

"What does the electrum do?" Artemis asked

"Like Flash and Kid flash it quickens the healing process to any injury he might have sustained but it would also be very painful"

The team thought back to all the times Black Bat had been injured during their missions. At Cadmus Black bat didn't seem to be injured but now his behavior probably meant that the electrum was healing any injuries he had gotten from the building collapsing on top of him. Wally also thought back to when Zatanna had put on the Helmet of Fate and he had yelled at Black Bat for not stopping her, now he felt like a jerk, but how was he supposed to know that some serum inside him was causing too much pain for him to move

"How did Richard escape?" Artemis asked

"He didn't" Bruce told them and when they were about to speak up he held a hang up "Once the court felt that the league was getting to close to finding out where their base was they became quite angry that it was because we were trying to rescue Richard. So when he got back from another mission they had sent him on they had set fire to the base and left him inside to die"

Zatanna eyes widened, how many times had he come close to dying, he must have felt so betrayed when they had done that, he had worked so hard to gain their approval and acceptance only for them to stab him in the back

"We had arrived in time to rescue him just before the fire had consumed the base, he did have several injuries but by the time we got him back to the Hall of Justice the electrum had already healed them. Richard did have horrible scars from the court's treatment though"

Some of them lifted their eyebrows, none of them had ever seen any sign of any scars on Black Bat even though he didn't show much skin from what they had seen his skin was pure. Zatanna was just as confused she had actually gotten to see black bat once without a shirt on but there was no sign of any scaring

"He wear's fake skin" Selina told them answering their mental question "The scars are on his neck, wrists, and ankles"

Wally remembers the mission in Bialya when they had lost their memories and seeing the scaring on Black Bat's neck, he had thought it was something else because the next time he had seen him the scarring was gone

"The scaring on his neck were from a shock collar they had put him on if he ever disobeyed them or tried to escape while out on the field" getting grim looks from the team thinking of the electricity shocks he could have received from getting a horrible scar "And the scars on his wrists and ankles are from shackles they had put on him when he was held in his cell or when he was tortured"

Conner growled the word shackles made him think of a cage, those talons had treated his friend like some sort of pet. The other couldn't bear the thought of thinking of their friend being tortured while he was unable to move

"Once Richard was rescued we had to send him back to CPS where his old social worker sent him back to the Juvenile Detention Center, but this time around when the other inmates tried to bully him again he was able to fight back but ended up sending them most of them to the hospital"

"Well they deserved it if you ask me" Conner huffed

Zatanna couldn't really blame Richard though if you could protect yourself why not do it but sending them to the hospital was going a bit too far wasn't it, well that was the only fighting style he knew at the time

"Nobody was stupid enough to get killed right?" Wally asked

"No the worst he did was breaking a bone"

"Richard was also close to being deported" Selina spoke up

"Deported?!" Zatanna asked

"What's deported mean?" M'gann asked

"It means to send you out of the country, typically because you are illegally in the US" Kaldur explained

"Yes, Richard was originally born in Bucharest, Romania located in Europe" Selina nodded "But we were able to get him a working visa until he took a test last year and became an official US citizen. After that it only took a little more time until he was finally allowed to leave the detention center and come home with us"

Zatanna smiled thinking of Richard finally being free

"It had taken some time for Dick to get used to living in a mansion because he had been so used to a cell, but after a while he became accustomed to it, we enrolled him in Gotham Academy, and he's on several academic teams. One night while Batwoman and I were out on a mission Poison Ivy had put us under mind control so Richard had to come and help us by putting a suit together with our friend Alfred's help and managed to save us along with the commissioner"

"The article where the media named him Batboy?" Artemis asked

"Batboy?" Zatanna laughed a bit

"Yes Dick said the same thing when he saw the article the next day, it was originally supposed to be an only one-time thing but after some persuasion from his friend at school hoping this new child hero would make it official he had decided to continue. The league wasn't too happy with it though" Selina turned to Black Canary "None of them trusted Dick because they felt he was too much of an assassin to be let into the hero business"

"They had to at least give him a chance to prove himself" Zatanna cried

"Well now after 5 years of it some of them have accepted him" Selina smiled

"Really?" Conner put his fists on his hips and looked to black canary with a look on his face

"What?" she asked

"It took 5 years to prove himself?"

Artemis thought back to when Black Bat had tried to kill her father as Sportsmaster, that actually made a little sense why he knew how to kill and he was still new to being a hero at the time so his assassin training must have kicked in when her father tried to kill him. She was about to question why the league had accepted her so easily and not Richard but she remembered she had never actually committed any crime but his was massive

"But now" Batman got all their attention "The Court of Owls have returned as you've seen them on several missions and taken back Richard"

"Why would they want him back though? If they were just going to kill him in the end why didn't they just leave him alone" Zatanna cried gripping the bracelet on her wrist

"The Grandfather Ivo spoke of during the interrogation is the leader of the Court of Owls, his name is William Cobb. We assume he had taken Richard for some unknown reason because if they did want to kill him we would have found a body in that alley"

"But Richard can't do anything, he's sick" Zatanna remembered how pale he had looked on the hospital bed last night "I doubt the talons will nurse him back to health"

"The thing is Richard isn't actually sick, that was just a lie he had asked us to tell you so you wouldn't worry about him" Selina told them "He is actually dying"

"DYING!" Zatanna yelled

"But shouldn't the electrum be healing him from anything, even me and flash can't get and illness and die from it because of our abilities" Wally yelled

"We know, but the day when Zatanna, M'gann , and Conner found him unconscious here he had another episode back home where Alfred had to help him. We took him to the watchtower where Martian Manhunter and The Atom ran several tests on him and found that it was because of the electrum that this is happening to him" Selina explained

Bruce took over "When Richard hit puberty the electrum couldn't take the changes that his body was going under so it began attacking his organs preventing them from developing and are causing them to shut down. We were in the works of looking for a cure when Richard was kidnapped"

"But if the talons are the people who made the Electrum shouldn't they know how to cure it? Zatanna asked, she hoped that William cared for his grandson enough to save his life

"But why would the talons want to cure him, he's a traitor isn't he?" Conner asked

"Well his grandfather is the leader, he's family so he should save him right?" M'gann asked

"Not all family care about each other M'gann" Artemis crossed her arms

"Whatever reason the Court has taken Dick for, he is in no condition to do anything to severe that could cause his condition to worsen so we are hoping that William was give Dick the cure for it"

"We still need to save him, what if they make him become an assassin again?" Raquel asked

"He would never do that!" Zatanna yelled

"Well they could always do something with mind control or erase his memory" Kaldur thought thinking of Simon from bialya

"We don't even know where to start looking" Selina said "We were hoping that maybe Zatanna could perform a spell to make it easier to narrow down the places to search for him"

They all turned to Zatanna looking for an answer "Believe me I would do that with no hesitation but I am not trained enough to look for one person on an entire planet, maybe if we knew exactly which state he was in I could narrow it down to a city but…"

"What about that base?" wally asked looking to the Bats "The one that was supposed to be in Gotham, maybe it has some clues to where the talons are"

"It probably did but anything inside that base was destroyed in the fire"

"I can to a spell to temporarily restore it, everything would go back to the way it was before the fire like time-travel, the people inside would just be frozen though" Zatanna spoke up

"That's a great idea!" M'gann cheered

Selina looked to Bruce "Dick did say that William kept a case full of files in his office, maybe there's something inside of that that could help us"

Bruce thought about it, none of them had ever gone back to the base since the fire but this was their best chance of finding their son "Alright, the base is a few miles outside of the city"

"We can take my bio-ship to it" M'gann offered

"Then you should go, I'll tell everyone else where you've gone" Dinah told them

"Let's go"

oOo

Dick was panting heavily and sweating , it felt like it was over 100 degrees inside this container and his body was in serious pain that it was too painful to even move an inch, and his vision was way too blurry to even see anymore so he had resorted to leaving them closed. He sound of a door opening made his ears hurt

"I see the electrum is just about finishing you off" that sounded like William's voice "Then I suggest we hurry and administer the renizal right away"

He was too weak to even talk let alone move so how was he supposed to walk out of the container and follower William to the lab, he wondered until he heard a few buttons being pushed then the sound of something sliding above him and the sound of air. He groaned as he looked up at the top of the container to see some kind of gas filling up the container

If he had his full strength he would have begun panicking and yelling at William but he just closed his eyes and waited for the gas to fill the entire container, he coughed several times getting jolts of pain in his body every time until he lost consciousness and collapsed on the container floor

oOo

William waited a couple of minutes after the gas had completely filled the container and he could no longer see Richard through it when he pressed some buttons on the control panel outside the container and the air vents at the top of the container began sucking the gas out. Richard was lying unconscious on the floor now so he presses a large button on the control panel and the glass of the container lifted up

"Get the shackles off him and move him to the lab" William told the other two talons who had come with him to get Richard, he then walked out and headed for the lab

The two talons unlocked the shackles around Richards's wrists and ankles then one of them put him over their shoulder and went to follow William

To be continued