Wounded Birds, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl [rough draft]

Part 5 (Dick)

I know something's wrong when I wait for the bullet and it never comes.

He's never once failed me, but now my target is lying unconscious at my feet, clearly defeated, and I've been waiting for five minutes now and even backing away, step by desperate step - yet no bullet comes. There's no dark guardian angel in the shadows ready to end this man's life and protect me from the Court.

I know there's no way I'll be able to finish the mission myself, so I rush back home. Maybe...maybe he's just running late. He'll show up, and he'll...see my target, and he'll...get it done and then come dragging himself into my apartment, ready to be comforted...

I'm still alone at three in the morning when the Owls come for me, and I know why they've come, and I'm terrified because I don't know what happened to Damian. Did he get hurt? Is he sick? Where is he?!

They bind me to a chair and pump me with truth serum, but it's not as horrible an ordeal as usual because the only questions they ask me are ones I can answer truthfully.

"Have you been in contact with Damian Wayne?"

(Not for the past twenty-ish hours, nope.)

"Why didn't you finish your assignment?"

(I couldn't.)

"Have you tampered with your or his implant in any way?"

(Hah, nope. The state I'm in, I couldn't hack a children's video game, much less the little hellbot in my neck...)

"Do you know the whereabouts of Damian Wayne?"

(No, oh God, I don't, please God, please let him be okay...!

...Maybe he found a way to escape without me. Good. That's good, I just...I just wish I knew for sure, because I can bear all the rest if I just new for sure that he's safe...)

The cell they shut me up in afterward isn't too bad. At least it's quiet. But then after a while, I have no idea if I've been in here a few hours or a few days, they barge in and take me to a room with drains in the floor and stand me in front of a terrified captive and put a gun into my hand.

"Finish him, Talon. The Court so orders you."

I drop the gun and close my eyes and wait.

"If you don't want Damian Wayne to suffer, kill this man."

The speakers explode with a child's screams. Maybe months ago, when I was stronger, things might have been different, but now I'm broken. I only have to endure my little brother's cries of pain for two seconds before I blink and find myself back in my cell.

Whether Damian suffers or not isn't up to me anymore...now my brain takes care of the decisions for me.

Still, it's agony to think that they've got my brother trapped in another cell somewhere, that he's being tortured because I'm too sick to even try to make the choices that will save him. I have a string of episodes, at first I keep finding my own blood on my hands, then at one point I open my eyes to find myself in a straitjacket. When a human being, finally, finally enters my cell again, after I feel like I've been trapped in my own madness for an eternity, I beg him to tell me if Damian is safe.

They drag me away and dump me at the feet of three Owls, who gaze down at me like I'm a particularly disgusting insect.

"Please...please, just tell me if Damian's all right. Please, I'll do anything... If I could kill, I would, but I can't, I'll do anything else, just tell me what happened to Damian...!"

They confer with each other in low voices, and I strain to get free of the straitjacket. I could do it...at least, I used to be able to do it...if no one's watching me, but it would be idiotic to escape the restraints right in front of my captors. Right now, all I can do is struggle fruitlessly just to take the edge off my desperation.

At last, they look at me and say what I'd most hoped and least expected to hear from their cruel lips: "Damian Wayne has escaped. He is no longer under our control, and is most likely back with his family."

I burst into tears. There's a tinge of horror at the realization that I've been abandoned, but most of it is overwhelming relief and joy. Damian is free. I don't have to agonize over his safety anymore. He's free. I can die peacefully, knowing that he's safe.

I must have lost a minute or two, because I'm startled to find myself being unbound. They haul me to my feet and lead me to a table with food on it, which I start devouring without permission. They don't stop me, though; all they do is set a bag on the table and wait.

"Enough," one of them finally says, and someone holds me down while the rest of the food is taken away. I wait, head hanging, not caring what happens to me anymore. One of the Owls impatiently seizes my hair and shoves me forward, so that my upper body sprawls over the tabletop. "What an animal... Open the bag, Grayson."

I don't...know how to respond for a minute, it feels so strange to hear them call me by my real name.

Someone strikes the back of my head, prompting me to reach for the bag and unzip it. I'm shocked and bewildered and wary, and a little tearful, to see the blue gleam of my Nightwing insignia inside. The bag contains the uniform I was wearing when I was captured, as well as a set of civilian clothes. "What...what is...? I don't understand."

"You're free, Richard Grayson. We're releasing you from our service. Go where you will, and do what you will - we no longer concern ourselves with you."

I think I'm...I must be dreaming. Still, I pick up the bag and step toward the door, and keep going, expecting at any minute to either wake up or get shot or tackled or...just...something bad will happen any second now...

But it doesn't. I'm halfway down an alley when I see my first glimpse of...people. Real people, ordinary people, not Owls or targets, just ordinary citizens of Gotham, going about their business on the city streets just a few steps away.

My legs buckle and I slump against the dirty brick wall beside me. When I come back from the episode, it's to find a man hauling my bag over his shoulder as his buddy rifles through my pockets. When our eyes meet, he punches me. I catch myself with my hands before my face hits the pavement, feeling too confused and unreal to stop these small-time, ordinary criminals from robbing me.

The one with the bag swears, holding up my Nightwing uniform. "What is this?!"

"Costume," I say automatically. Apparently the Never-Reveal-Our-Secret-Identities training is hammered so deeply into my brain that it's survived even months of captivity and mental illness. "Just coming home from a party, that suit was a big hit with the girls..."

The mugger crouching beside me laughs as he looks at all my bruises. "Must've been a rough party."

"Yeah." I smile, hoping that my face still remembers how to be charming. "Worth it, though."

They leave with all my stuff, but I can't bring myself to care one way or the other. I have to figure out A) whether I'm hallucinating or not, and B) if this is real, why on God's green earth would the Court of Owls just let me go?!

It takes me a lot longer than it would have if my mind wasn't so fried, but at last, I realize why: they're expecting me to go home. The implant is still embedded in my body, tracking my location and capable of blowing my head off and hurting anyone within a few feet of me. If I go home, if I make any contact with my family, the Owls will know when and where to strike.

I can't go home. I can't ever see the people I love again. I shouldn't even be near any people at all.

I draw in a deep breath, and exhale slowly. It's all right. It just means I have to die. I don't have the will to actively kill myself, so what I need to do is leave town on foot, and stay away from people, and wait until I'm dead. "I love you, Damian," I murmur aloud. The words give me enough strength that I can finally get to my feet and start walking.

o.o.o.o.o

It's so peaceful out here. I wasn't expecting to be happy, out here in the middle of nowhere waiting for death, but to be honest, I kind of am.

There's nothing to do, but there are no missions, either. No assignments, no blood, no pain. I wander the countryside past the city limits of Gotham, listening to the wind in the tall grass, watching the animals that occasionally wander across my line of sight. Sometimes I come across woody patches, where I like to sit under trees and watch the play of sunlight through their leaves. One night, I even have company, a stray dog who licks my hands and curls up with me to sleep, though he's gone in the morning.

After a few days, I'm too tired from lack of food to keep walking, so I lie on the grass in the shade of a tree and watch ants busily passing by.

I haven't had a single episode the whole time I've been out here.

o.o.o.o.o

I thought I was too weak to move, that I was finally dying, but when the Owls come for me, I find that terror gives me strength enough to leap to my feet and run.

Of course they catch me. I scream, completely panicked, then furious that they would wreck my peace and deny me even the death I'd chosen. Then they shackle my hands, and the terror returns, and then I blink and I'm somewhere else.

We're underground, some kind of sublevel in a building. I'm encased in a bomb vest. A ranting Owl is standing before me as his thugs tie me to some sort of mechanical equipment.

"...yet you can't even do that much! You are the most useless excuse for a human being I have ever encountered in my life, I can't even remember a time when we were so..."

He keeps going on and on, and the gist of it is that I was right: they had hoped I would be their Trojan Horse. Now that they really do have no more use for me, they're going to get their revenge. They could have just shot me, but they're too angry at me for that - now they're killing two birds with one stone, using me to blow up a building full of their enemies.

"Goodbye, Richard Grayson."

They're gone. I concentrate hard on the sound of my own breathing, trying not to lose myself in another episode. I have to stop this bomb - I don't care what happens to me, but I refuse to be the cause of yet more deaths.

The vest I'm wearing contains the timer and the initial bomb; there are other explosives set around me, and what's even worse is that the equipment I'm tied to is one of the building's power centers. It's enclosed in a locked chain-link cage, though hopefully that won't be too much of a problem, since I see boxes of tools stacked in one corner.

First things first. Getting free of the ropes takes me a lot longer than it should, but eventually I manage it. Finally I can see how long I have left: 37 minutes. I'm able to disconnect the secondary explosives from the bomb on my chest, but the rest of it is a problem. I can't disable the power center without hacking into it, which I don't have time for. I'm too uncertain about the wiring on the vest, I don't trust myself to defuse it correctly, and it'd be difficult anyway with the vest still strapped to me - I can't take it off before defusing it, and I don't think I can defuse it while I'm still wearing it.

I need to escape the building and run far enough away that no one but me will be caught in the explosion. I'm running out of time, especially since I'm so weak from starvation that I'm not even sure I'll be able to break out of the cage.

I drag the tools over to the perimeter and start trying to wrench a hole in the links. I'm so weak, it was stupid to try to starve myself to death... I missed my chance. I should have killed myself quickly, but I didn't. I can't even see to work anymore because I'm crying, because it's my fault that these people are about to die.

To be continued...

A/N: I couldn't find a way to include it anywhere, but the sounds of Damian being hurt were recordings from early in their captivity.