Batman stood at the edge of a rooftop, watching the shadows that surrounded his city. Robin was at his side, as always.
"It's only been three days." it was the Boy Wonder who broke the pleasant silence that had developed.
The elder hero knew what his partner was referring to.
Three days had passed since the attempted murder of Lucius Fox by the Talon. As for the latter, it was eventually killed permanently by Batman, and Black Canary did not fight his fiancé's decision, for which he was truly grateful.
Moreover, in the days that followed, the city of Gotham remained relatively quiet.
A little too quiet for the Bat Family's taste.
The most suspicious of this quiet was Batman himself. Dick was fairly certain that the Court of Owls was preparing to launch a major attack that would catch them off guard.
And his bat senses were practically tingling.
Batman and Robin continued their patrol regularly, and again, there had been little crime to foil.
Very strange.
Batman stopped, which forced Robin to do the same and look confused at his mentor in a silent question that hovered in the air.
"I think I saw something moving in the shadows." whispered the more experienced vigilante, looking in one direction without ever taking his eyes off it. He grabbed his grappling hook and fired, and the Boy Wonder followed him.
When Robin landed, he found the Dark Knight kneeling. As he approached, he saw that in his hand he held a feather that looked strangely like that of an owl.
"Is it an owl feather?" Robin knew it was a stupid question but could not help but express it anyway.
"Yes. It is the main clue the Court of Owls releases." white eyes turned to his partner. "That means at least one Talon is close to us."
Robin stiffened, ready to fight a Talon if it suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something that caught his attention and passed the Caped Crusader.
"Batman, I found a trail of blood." immediately Batman stood next to him and they both followed the long trail of blood that led to a dead end.
The two crime fighters found a dead body of a man in his 50s. What immediately caught their attention was the knife plunged precisely and fatally into the victim's heart.
Batman crouched down and placed a gloved hand on the victim's neck.
"It's still warm." he said as he got up. "He hasn't been dead long."
The two looked behind the victim. Indeed, behind the corpse, there was bloody writing on the wall.
You can't escape us.
Batman's eyes narrowed. It was only at this moment that the Dynamic Duo noticed two other corpses completely immersed in darkness and difficult to glimpse. There was as much bloody writing on the walls behind their lifeless bodies.
It is your destiny.
Recited the first inscription.
You will remain alone.
Batman directed his attention to this last inscription.
What the hell did it mean?
Perhaps that-
Suddenly, a hum echoed through the air.
Robin looked at his partner, confused about why the noise was coming from the other half of the Dynamic Duo.
Batman narrowed his eyes and from his utility belt pulled out a T-shaped communicator and the Boy Wonder solved the little puzzle.
It was the communicator of the team founded by Grayson: the Teen Titans, for the past few years just Titans although there are other ramifications of this team with new generations of heroes.
Robin was aware of how much his partner cared about his friends and always carried his communicator with him as Nightwing, in case his team needed its original leader: but he did not know that Grayson carried it with him even while he was Batman.
"Batman to the Titans. Report." spoke the dark vigilante, and Robin approached his mentor to get a better look at who was interrupting their patrol.
On the other side of the line appeared the face of Donna Troy, the first Wonder Girl and current leader of the senior Titans team. Robin hated to admit it but was surprised when he saw the older woman's face bloodied and bruised, and next to him, he felt Batman stiffen and could feel the sheer anger emanating.
"Nigh-Batman!" Donna sighed with relief when she saw her best friend. "Good thing you answered!"
"What's going on Donna? Who did this to you?" the Caped Crusader gritted his teeth as he saw his best friend's split lip in addition to numerous other injuries.
"I honestly don't know what, or rather, who attacked us: all I know is that it is practically a monster that almost succeeded in killing us all!" Donna was shaking, whether from rage or wounds, neither vigilante could determine for sure.
Batman and Robin exchanged a glance, both fearing who the assailant was.
"Let me guess: tall, slender, yellow eyes without any emotion, damn high healing factor, immortal, lots of knives?"
"Exactly. How do you know that?"
"Where is it now?"
Both Troia and Robin noticed the acrobat's choice of subject but did not comment.
Donna clucked her tongue, frustrated that her friend avoided the question but decided to answer anyway.
"Cyborg and Tempest dragged it into the interrogation room after I knocked it out with a punch so hard I swear I heard its lungs collapsing!" shuddered Wonder Woman's sister.
"Tell Raven to use her magic to keep him unconscious as long as possible while I get there to New York!"
Donna was surprised by her best friend's urgent tone and realized that the matter was far more important than she had initially thought. If Dick was planning to personally visit Titan Tower, it meant that the issue was very serious.
"Okay, then see you later." and with that the call ended.
Batman looked at Robin and opened his mouth to speak but was preceded by his younger partner.
"Don't you dare leave me here, Batman." he interrupted him abruptly. "I'm going with you. I won't leave you alone with those clueless idiots."
A slight smirk appeared on the Caped Crusader's face and he briefly mussed the younger man's hair before turning serious again.
"Let's not waste time then."
Donna Troy looked at the interrogation room from behind the one-way glass. Raven was keeping the monster unconscious with Cyborg and Tempest on either side of her in case the murderer would wake up and, one way or another, break free from the magic of Trigon's daughter.
The team leader looked at the other two members present beside her. Beast Boy, in his normal form, was sitting leaning wearily against the wall since that monster had broken his right leg quite easily and the shifter had refused to go to the medical room to see Dick's arrival.
Starfire, on the other hand, was looking fiercely at their prisoner with green eyes so hard and angry that for a moment Donna thought her starbolts would be shot.
Donna was waiting impatiently for her best friend and, in the process, contemplating how worried and serious he was about the situation.
The Amazon thought that perhaps he knew their assailant personally and how dangerous it was.
"You know, you will have to tell Cyborg to change the Tower's security. It's too easy to access it."
The voice startled the three Titans who assumed fighting poses with Beast Boy becoming a gorilla. They looked wide-eyed at their room when they noticed no sign of life, and suddenly Donna slapped a hand to her forehead when she recognized the voice, albeit much more slowly than usual.
She was blaming the injuries.
"Dick, stop hogging the damn shadows and get out for Hera's sake!"
Batman suddenly stepped out of the darkness and gave a smirk to his friends who were even more stunned to see a trace of emotion on the Dark Knight's face.
This was the first time the Titans saw their former leader as Gotham's masked vigilante and it was very strange.
Robin, standing next to his mentor, emitted an annoyed snort and nothing more.
"Dick! Good to see you!" Starfire flew toward her friend but was stopped by a katana pointed at her heart.
"Get back from Grayson, you harlot!" growled the young vigilante. "It is useless for you to try to win Grayson's affection! He belongs to Lance and his own family, alien!"
Batman pinched his nose in annoyance and cast a glare that stopped Beast Boy's laughter. He also cast a warning glance at the princess of Tamaran whose green eyes glittered with anger. Finally he clutched Robin's shoulder in a clear signal and the Boy Wonder, with much reluctance, stowed his weapon.
"I have yet to understand why you allow that boy to carry a katana." Donna asserted with a raised eyebrow.
"It's his weapon of choice." he simply shrugged. Next, his white eyes narrowed as he observed the wounds of his friends.
Beast Boy had a broken leg, a split lip, and gauze wrapped over his head, clearly indicating his concussion, as well as various bruises scattered over his body that stood out given his green skin. He was also keeping his jaw sore.
Starfire had a very bad bruise on her right cheek that would remain for some time, her left arm was hanging in an unnatural and clearly broken position. From the way she was holding her stomach and right hip, both bandaged, Dick knew that the Talon had stabbed her at least twice.
He looked at his longtime friend: Donna. The woman had a split lip, a fairly bruised face, a well-repaired stab wound on her left leg, and, from the way her blue eyes sometimes became blurry, it looked like she too received quite a concussion.
Batman gritted his teeth angrily and turned to look on the other side of the glass. His eyes briefly catalogued the wounds of the other three Titans before his gaze settled on the prisoner.
Everyone noticed how he had clenched his fists and his white eyes were narrowed even more. He was practically vibrating with rage.
"Robin, Donna, you're with me." Batman ordered as he turned to leave the room, his fluttering cloak following him.
"You know I'm the leader, right?" asked Donna sarcastically but followed the Dynamic Duo anyway.
The three entered the interrogation room and the eyes of the other Titans stopped on the newcomers.
"Ehy Dick!" greeted him with a small smile Cyborg and Tempest gave his best friend a nod and the masked vigilante greeted them both.
With a glance from their leader, the two Titans left the room to join BB and Starfire.
Batman approached Raven and nodded to her, which she returned. After that he approached the Talon, studying it closely.
"We confiscated every knife it had. I don't know how it could hold almost ten knives." Donna shook her head, surprised.
Batman rummaged through the assassin's armor and located three more knives and handed them over without a word to Robin, who hid them in his own utility belt.
"Good. That's eleven knives now." commented the Amazon dryly.
The Caped Crusader also removed the talons from the Talon and threw them directly into the trash can.
As he continued to inspect the unconscious Talon, Robin turned to Donna with a sneer that Wonder Woman's sister did not like at all.
"Six against one and you got tossed around like dolls."
Donna clenched her fists and looked fiercely at the ten year old.
"For your information, this monster here was literally immortal and was a damn meta-human. Every wound we caused it healed quickly!" here she paused, as if struggling with herself to decide whether or not to tell a fact.
"You know, when I was fighting with it for a grip on one of its seemingly endless knives, I accidentally cut off its right index finger, and do you know how it reacted?" she gave him no time to respond. "It didn't react at all! It didn't scream or do anything! Black blood came out of its wound! Black!" she emphasized this last word emphatically. "And to finish about ten minutes later I saw its index finger literally regenerate!" the former Wonder Woman sidekick shuddered in disgust.
"-tt. What you stated is no doubt quite astonishing but it does not justify how you were half-killed." here only Dick could detect the slight worried tone of his Robin and thought the reason was not so much the safety of the Titans but more to how Dick himself would react to the loss of his best friends.
Of course, Donna did not feel the same way.
"Oh yeah? You wouldn't have lasted even three minutes against him!"
"-tt. Please, Troy, you are overestimating the Talon's capabilities against me."
"Talon? How the hell do you know-that's not the point!" she shook her head. "The fact is that even Batman would have had a hard time against it!"
Robin gave an arrogant, evil smirk, showing her all his teeth.
And he probably would have scared a lot of people but certainly not Donna who could never be afraid of a ten year old child, even if said child was the son of the original Batman and Talia Al Ghul.
"Batman, unlike you incapacitated people, was able to single-handedly neutralize a Talon in a much shorter span of time than you." Robin declared, proud of his father figure.
Donna was about to retort but, when she registered the Boy Wonder's words, her eyes widened and she looked at Batman who was staring with amusement at the debate between the two.
"Are you two finished?"
Ignoring the 20 year old's sarcasm, she finally asked him the question that had been consuming her.
"What the hell is going on?"
The Caped Crusader sighed and explained the whole situation to the two Titans present in the interrogation room, as well as those who were listening behind the glass. They were all stunned, including Raven who was the person showing the least emotion almost as much as Damian.
"What should we do with Sleeping Beauty? I can't keep him unconscious forever." the sorceress asked rhetorically.
Batman slowly stepped forward toward the Talon but Robin stepped ahead of him and, drawing his katana, decapitated the Talon. The assassin's head fell to the ground and rolled about ten centimeters as black blood spilled out.
Raven and Donna's eyes widened but, other this, they had no other reaction. Batman cast a dirty look at Robin and his gaze intensified when, somehow, he heard on the other side of the glass someone vomiting (it was probably Beast Boy).
Robin grew nervous at his partner's disapproving look and did his best to hide it, boldly meeting Batman's gaze.
It was Raven who ended the two Bats' staring contest.
"At least the problem has been solved, even if another one has arisen. Who cleans up this mess?"
No one was surprised when it was Robin.
Batman stood on the sidelines in the Titans' main hall quietly observing his best friends.
Beast Boy and Cyborg were, to no one's surprise, playing video games with Garth laughing at the younger boys' antics. Starfire was flying aimlessly with a small smile on her face and Raven was reading a book.
"I apologize for Robin decapitating that Talon, Donna." although he was talking to the person who had approached him, he was not looking her straight in the eye.
Robin, at his side, emitted a "-tt" and did not add anything else.
The Caped Crusader's mind went briefly to the beautiful time he spent with the Titans, including Wally and Roy, and when he lived with them in the Tower and fighting many enemies.
"Apology accepted, although it is slightly creepy that you know it's me without turning around at all." the leader complained.
The two best friends remained in comforting silence.
"Those were good times, weren't they?" said Donna softly, knowing what the former Robin was thinking.
"Absolutely." the vigilante quickly replied.
"Batman, I think we should make our return to Gotham before Batgirl can blow up the city for her inabilities."
Batman snorted in amusement but agreed on the part that they should return to Gotham as soon as possible. Suddenly his attention was caught by the television that changed screens and, amidst BB and Cyborg's complaints, the bruised face of Red Robin appeared silencing all noise.
Batman felt the rage growing out of all proportion and wanted to break every single bone in the body at the bastard who hurt his Baby Bird. And, noticing Robin clenching his jaw dangerously, he knew the youngest was equally pissed off (though he would never admit it).
"Red Robin. What happened?"
The former Robin glanced briefly over his shoulder before returning his attention to his older brother. The Caped Crusader noticed that the third Boy Wonder was definitely not in Gotham and mentally wondered where the hell he had gone to.
"I'm sure you just noticed that I'm not in Gotham." began Red Robin, getting an impatient nod from the more experienced vigilante. "I am in Teen Titan Tower because there's been a major emergency."
Dick raised an eyebrow under his cowl. It was really serious this emergency if the Teen Titans had to call their leader Red Robin, even though it had been a while since the latter had visited his team for obvious reasons.
The Teen Titans, consisting of Red Robin, Cassandra Sandsmark a.k.a. Wonder Girl (second in command), Bart Allen a.k.a. the new Kid Flash, Jaime Reyes a.k.a. Blue Beetle, Conner Kent a.k.a. Superboy, and finally Karen Beecher a.k.a. Bumblebee, were based in San Francisco.
"Explain."
"They were attacked by a Talon." he declared in a dark, grave voice.
"Another one?" exclaimed Cyborg who raised his hands in the air but was ignored.
"Let me guess: they called you for assistance since they were losing shamefully." Robin wrinkled his nose with contempt and an air of superiority.
Red Robin narrowed his eyes at his only younger brother, irritated by his tone. Batman squeezed his partner's shoulder in warning, and Robin huffed. The third Robin returned his attention entirely to the Dark Knight.
"That's pretty much what the brat said." he reluctantly admitted.
"Health status of your teammates?" although Dick was not as attached to them as Tim, they were still his friends and he had even trained them for a short time, so it was obvious he was worried about them.
"Seriously injured." sighed Red Robin in sadness and anger. He took a deep breath. "Wonder Girl received a stab wound that almost cost her life and she is alive by a miracle." here only the two Bats noticed the tremor in his voice and the former Robin looked sadly at Donna who had gasped in horror before returning his gaze to Batman.
"Kid Flash has received many hard blows and some definitely broken ribs but his healing factor will help him. Superboy had a piece of kryptonite stuck in his right leg but I have personally taken care of it and he will recover within a week. As for Blue Beetle and Bumblebee, I'm afraid the healing time will be longer for them."
Batman took note of his little brother's tired and frightened tone of voice and hated not being able to help him because he too was in the same situation with his best friends, although the latter were in better shape than the Teen Titans, probably because of their significantly greater experience.
"You? How are you?" he asked carefully.
"I just have a few bruises and a couple of scratches. I'm slightly sore all over, but all in all I'm okay."
"The Talon?" the Dark Knight's voice had become much lower and more menacing.
Red Robin's masked eyes coldly met Batman's face.
"It's not a problem anymore."
Batman nodded at him, not judging his little brother's decision to have ended the Talon's life.
In fact, he was proud of his Baby Bird.
"Sorry to intrude, but doesn't it seem strange that the Court of Owls sent these Talons to attack both the Titans and the Teen Titans?" intervened Garth from his position on the couch.
"It's actually hard to say that this is pure coincidence." nodded Cyborg in agreement with him.
"Of course it's not." snorted Robin, crossing his arms. "The Court of Owls has a definite plan. Any ideas, Batman?"
Obviously the Dark Knight was already thinking about it from the moment Red Robin warned him about the attack toward the Teen Titans. His brain was traveling miles per hour in the search for some connection to the various attacks by the Court.
First Lucius Fox.
Then the Titans.
And now the Teen Titans.
Batman's eyes went wide as his brain came to the conclusion.
"Fuck." he whispered.
"What happened Batman? Did you find out why?" it was Starfire who asked the question and everyone looked at the Caped Crusader surprised.
Dick rarely cursed, and if he did, it was given by circumstances that were either dangerous or emotionally difficult to handle.
Looking at no one specifically, Batman's fists closed menacingly, his jaw clenched, and his white eyes became even harder and colder such that they could scare even a demon.
"Those bastards want to kill the people I care about."
