Prologue (Clock Start)

Enough.

He had had enough.

The figure shrouded in black slunk his way through the dripping, dark waste of the twist and turns. Pausing animal-like here and there.

There was no one else there. Just darker patches and stains upon darker patches and stains on the floor of this - Labyrinth.

No one but the figure. And a couple of well-worn paths. There were places others had clearly come and gone - but the corner the figure disappeared into had barely been trod. The dust had been stirred a couple of times, but it had also been carefully swept back into a good approximation of where it originally been.

Now, if you would have followed the figure, you would've seen a middle-sized statue of some kind of raptor mid-strike. The slightest glint of bronze pressed slowly against the base. Pushing ever so gently.

The statue moved.

The faintest lift of a draft worked its way into the soupy atmosphere of the maze. Behind the podium was this clearly sealed passage – dry in the same way the furnace areas of the Labyrinth was dry, but not with periodic overwhelming heat.

The person – for it was a person, despite the claws and the facsimile of a beak and owl-like features – blew gently at the dust outside the passage, trying his best to cover the tracks and slide-marks; before ever-so quietly moving the statue back into place. He collapsed against the back of the statue in relief.

The sigh was barely audible. The relief palpable for a moment before tension once again filled his form. Anxiety gripped him. If you were there you would have heard the quiet gasps of panic settling in.

This was nothing new, this was everything new.

This was nothing and everything like the times he led others - the ones that could and would still live after the horrors the Owls subjected them to. The other ones - well that was what a quick blow and the furnaces were for.

He stood, feeling his way along the sides of the tunnel, moving forward before he suddenly stopped. He clawed at the sides, hitting the talons again. And again. And again. Till…

Plink.

Plink.

Plink.

The sonorous metal fell one by one. Exposing pale fingertips as they clattered to the floor. He caressed the sides in wonder, bent over as silent sobs wracked his body. Revelling in the ease and nimbleness of fine motor control. And just as quickly as the tension was relieved, it returned in full force.

He picked up a couple of the talons.

The passage was long. And it wound. With twists and turns and branches. The only guide was a small, barely detectable glyph of that raptor – leading... somewhere. And even then at the end of the line, there's a dead end.

Most people would give up at this point – accept that there is no escape. Not him. Not the people that left the Labyrinth. There is a secret. And as he had done before, he reached out to the wall that made the dead end and softly tapped.

Thunk.

Behind the shroud the figure smirked. This will begin their downfall. No matter how high and mighty they are – they still need to breathe. The sides of the passage revealed a concealed maintenance shaft entrance.

And he moved.

If the passage was confusing, then the ventilation system was muddled. It had an odd structured pattern – like if you just had a map, you'd know how to navigate it. As it stood, lots of guess work was required.

Guess work and an advantage the figure did not expect.

Rain.

He remembered rain. It had been so long. Too long. Behind the lenses his eyes closed as he concentrated on the sound. There. Louder there rather than here.

He moved. Stopping every now and then to navigate ever closer to the sound of rain. They'd done something to him. He knew. His hearing was better than before. His ability to tell where sounds and things would be without his eyesight greater than when he first was drug into that… place.

It was like he spent decades learning the knife thrower's act. Every nuance, every whisper that passed between the assistant and the thrower. That skill that's not strictly superhuman but pretty damn close?

Something changed.

And he had no intentions of changing any further.

There was a change in the vent's surface, it grew slick and slimy from… something. The sharp, sour smell of rust and rot filled the air. And light.

Mangy, yellow, sulphurous fog-piercing streetlamp light. Interspersed with the grid-like pattern of yet another vent cover. It was finicky work attempting to unscrew the vent leading back to the outside world from the inside of the shaft but the figure managed. He squeezed himself cautiously outside and replaced the cover – ensuring no evidence was left behind that anything had ever emerged from this particular place.

Looking around as the rain pour down on him, he wandered directly under the streetlamp to read off where he was.

"Park Row huh?"

The pool of light and rain was a baptism of sorts. Rebirth into a life he maybe should have had. If. If his family didn't fall. If he didn't chase after Zucco. If he had just stayed in the juvenile centre. If. If. If.

No more ifs.

He pulled off the mask, exposing Mediterranean blue eyes to the outside world - Dick breathed in freedom. And sighed.

"Welcome back to Gotham, Dick. Hope she treats you better this time around."


AN: Here's the beginning of the series proper - the Stalemate. In which we take a turn into a more Dick Grayson-centric storyline - which was the point. Gotham still needs a hero.
Thank you for following along so far and feel free to let us know what you think! If you'd like to contact us via tumblr, just to ask us more about this universe, my handle is eastoniablogs!