The first sip did nothing for too long, so long that he was midway through his fourth sip by the time it hit him. The pain nearly sent the cup flying from his hands, so strong was the spasm it sent through him. But he gripped it tight, breath catching in his throat.

Was the suffering he'd been through already worth this suffering? He couldn't say, but he drank more slowly, bringing the cup to his lip with trembling hands. It was a struggle, the further he got, the pain fighting him with every movement and breathing became a more laborious task with each passing second until he was gasping, gulping down air that was only barely coming to him every other moment.

Eventually, black spots began to tinge the periphery of his vision, creeping further and further into his line of sight proper but at last the cup was empty and he let it fall aside, clutching at his chest. The pain was overwhelming, enough that tears came to his eyes and he fell over onto his side in the bed, curling up tight, willing it away. Every breath became a fire in his lungs and every movement set his skin to itching and burning so he lay still, drawing breath only as needed, squeezing his eyes tight against the pain.

He lost consciousness after a time, maybe from the pain or maybe from lack of oxygen, but whatever the reason darkness overcame him and he came to some time later, shaking and hot, too hot, his body soaked to the bone with sweat.

Talia's face loomed in the white fuzz of his vision and he blinked up at her as she mopped at his soaked forehead, whispering something that might have been soothing, he wasn't sure. He couldn't make out her words, only that her lips were moving in a rhythm that reminded him of his pounding heart, and he reached out to to her only for his arm to fall back to the bed halfway through the motion, his body sapped of strength.

"I'm dying," he rasped out, fingers twitching from the attempt. It sent a fresh wave of pain through him, up his arm and to his very core, burning like the flame in his lungs, as the pain had done before he had passed out. Only now his body was aflame, where for so long it had been cold to the bone, and he wished, now, for the freezing temperatures and the hunger that had been there before, anything but the feeling of burning alive.

Talia made a noise that might have been a tsk and shook her head. "—not dying," he read from the movement of her lips. "It will pass."

"No," he gasped out and she reached out and took one of his hands, her other against his forehead, pressing a damp cloth to it. He wanted to scream at her because it was she that had done this to him but the strength wouldn't come to him so he lay there, staring up at her, begging silently for the death he was hoping would come. And at times he screamed until his throat was raw, thrashing from the pain as the strength came to him to do so.

Time passed in waves he couldn't track, though it was hardly a new feeling. And the memories came to him, too, slowly at first and then all at once, in fits and bouts, as dreams would during sleep.

He remembered, first, his parents, lying dead at his feet and then Bruce, tall and imposing, ushering him through the door to a house bigger than any he'd seen before in his life. And he remembered Batman, running with him from rooftop to rooftop.

And he remembered his team. Megan, green skinned with too big smiles. Artemis, with her sharp looks and blond hair. Wally, with a smattering of freckles and tousled red hair. Connor, all angry looks and Kaldur, with his quiet power.

He remembered running off on his own to chase down a lead and getting captured by the Joker. And he remembered every agonizing moment of his death, relived it again and again and again across hours, days, he wasn't sure how long.

And he remembered killing, everybody he'd torn open during his blackouts, every unfortunate soul who had laughed near him too loudly, too out of control. Every man with high angled cheekbones and a too big smile who he'd slaughtered like nothing. Women with bright lipstick and pale faces who'd he'd attacked in alleyways.

Eventually he came to, opening his eyes to the soft flickering glow of candlelight dancing from the nearby table. He didn't move for a long while, just staring up at the ceiling, terrified the pain would return to him with the smallest movement. But eventually he had to stir and when he did, the pain did come, but it was minimal, more than tolerable in the wake of the agony he'd just suffered. And his breath, still, set his lungs burning, but again, it was so much less so than before that he found himself thankful for it as he finally pushed himself upright.

The world seemed to spin around him as he reoriented himself, dizziness overcoming him. He fought back the urge to vomit, willing the nausea away as best he could. And he sat there, combing through his own mind, remembering until the memories turned bloody and sent him scrambling for the bathroom.

He stood there awhile, holding himself upright with clammy hands against the porcelain sink, heaving up what little he had in his stomach and then dry heaving when nothing else would come up.

He had killed so many people, he had hurt so many others.

From the doorway there was movement and he looked up just as Talia appeared.

"You remember," was all she said as she pushed a glass of water into his shaking hands. He drank it down fast, though it did little for the lingering taste of vomit in his mouth. He pushed it back into her waiting hand, panting and gasping from how weak he felt, from the energy it took to stand. "The shock will pass soon enough."

She stepped aside to let him pass and he hobbled back to the bed, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Talia again took a seat in the chair nearby, silent and patient.

In his life before, as he remembered it now, he had met her only once or twice before, at Wayne Manor. She had loved Bruce, perhaps still did, given her earlier words, and had on more than one occasion found her way into the man's home and into his bed, though Dick never reflected on it too much.

Now, though, she was different, imposing and powerful where before she had been all beauty and elegance. Gone was the fancy dress he had once associated with her and in its place was the traditional League of Shadows garb, weapons strapped about it.

"I remember," he said, but it was for himself and not her, a way to root the memories to reality, fearful suddenly that they may slip away, though equally hopeful in light of the worst memories. "I've killed people." He reached a trembling hand up to push his sweat damp hair from his face, scrubbing at his eyes.

Talia nodded. "You have," she confirmed. She reached to the table next to her and picked up the tray of food there that he hadn't noticed before. She passed it over to him and he didn't protest as she set it onto his lap. "You should eat, you need to regain your strength."

Again it was a bowl of broth and bread but he couldn't bring himself to complain as he started on it, hands barely strong enough to lift the bowl to his mouth. All the while she sat and watched him as a mother looking after her child would and he tried not to let it unnerve him, though it did anyway with the knowledge of who she really was.

He turned everything over in his mind as he ate, his life, his death, his life after. His life before came to him as if through a sieve, distant and difficult to connect to. The memories were there and he knew he had lived them but there was a disconnect from those memories, as if he merely knew that they had happened rather than having actually lived them, as if viewing them all through a foggy window. But the memories after came crisper and cleaner.

"How is your pain?" she asked him after a while and he jumped, spoon rattling against the bowl.

"There," he told her, and it was the truth, though with everything else it was so minor he had almost forgotten it. "But not bad." He shrugged and it felt more normal than anything had in years. "I've had worse," he added dryly.

She smiled. "And your memories?"

He looked over at her darkly, a queasy feeling coming over him once more. "There as well, but—" he paused, searching for the words. "Far away?" he tried and she hmmed.

"You're dissociating," she explained, and he nodded because it sounded right. "It too will pass with the shock."

He nodded again for the sake of the movement and finished off his broth before casting the bowl aside and tearing into the bread. It was dry and horrible, more so now with the memory of what actual food tasted like. He longed for steak, for eggs, for Alfred's baking, or even the burnt crisps Megan called cookies. But the bread was something for his stomach and he ate it, grateful for the food.

"How long has it been?" Dick asked, at last. "How long was I—"

"A year and a half," she told him softly and he almost choked on the piece of bread he'd just shoved into his mouth. He swallowed it down and frowned, doing the math in his head.

"I would be 17?" he ventured. "I am 17," he amended. For a year and a half he'd been on the streets hurting and hungry and losing himself more and more by the day. He felt sick all over again, but swallowed the feeling down successfully this time.

"Yes." Talia stood and took the now empty tray from his lap. "Is there anything else I can get you?

He looked at the tray. "More food?" he suggested and she smirked, shaking her head.

"Not yet. Your stomach can't handle it. I will have one of my men bring you more water, however, and there will be a bigger meal in the morning." She turned and headed for the door, her shoes clicking loud on the stone floor.

"Wait," he called after her and she paused, turning to look at him. "What will happen to me now? If I choose to stay?" He turned their earlier conversation around in his head. "If I stay, will I have to kill for you, for the League?"

"Yes," she said simply. "You have a few days to decide. I'll return when you have your answer." And with that she left the room, leaving him to eerie silence and the sound of his heart pounding in his ears.

He slept fitfully that night, nightmares coming to him the entire time. But when he woke there was a warm bowl of oatmeal and fruit waiting for him, which he devoured far too quickly.

He realized after a long while of boredom that he was able to leave his room and he did so, heading out to wander the halls. He found training rooms almost immediately, with rows of weapons and weights. He picked up a thin blade that looked his size and his hands trembled with the weight of it and the strength required to keep a solid grip.

It was disheartening, from where he had once been. He was no longer strong or flexible or skilled. He doubted he could hold his own in a fight and he returned the sword to its spot, turning to leave.

If he stayed, Talia would train him, but she would have him kill, as he had before. But if he left, he had no way to return home, no one to return to. No one would be there waiting for him and he would have to explain to them all the things he'd done to survive, he would have to make sense of it all to them and he couldn't stomach the thought anymore than he could stomach killing for Talia.

And they had grieved for him, no doubt, had come full circle back to some sense of normalcy in the wake of his death, as he had done with his own parents death, and going back would ruin that, would rehash the pain all over again. Everyone had moved on, no doubt, and he was here, now, a killer and a survivor and alive against all odds, and this life had been granted to him for a reason.

And the League, however wrong they were in their ways, didn't kill for killing's sake. The killed to restore a warped sense of balance they saw falling apart in the world. They killed politicians, lawyers, high profile figures with questionable morals and hidden agendas.

He couldn't decide if it would be easier to live with than returning to the life he'd been living, on the streets.

Talia came to him the following day and he knew she knew his answer the moment she laid eyes on him. "You will stay," she said, and he nodded.

"I'll stay."

He swore his oath to the League the following week, when his strength had returned and he could finally leave his bed for more than just a few hours at a time.

Talia herself preceded over the ceremony and the warriors of the fortress all lined up to attend, hundreds of them filling the room. She recited the oath to him in its original ancient arabic and then, again, in english, and he recited it back to her, line by line until it was complete.

"Kneel," she commanded and he did so, his body protesting the movement. "You are reborn in the name of the League," she said at long last, brushing cool knuckles across his forehead. "Choose a name."

"Robin," he said, and it was fitting to be reborn as such, after dying in that name. He was more Robin than he had ever been before, his previous life resigned to distant, foggy memories, even after the shock had worn off.

"Robin," she announced to the hall of people and she bid him rise with a gesture."You are henceforth sworn to the League of Shadows, until such a time as your death takes you from us or you are relinquished of your duties."

He rose to applause.

His training began right away. Sometimes it was with Talia, one on one, and at other times it was with the other members. Most of the training was familiar and yet a struggle all the same, weak as he was, but after a few months he began to fill out in weight and in muscle, growing into his body at last. His strength returned little by little until he was near or at a place he once may have been, only more so, older and more experienced now.

His appearance certainly changed with time, as well, his hair finally healthy and soft, growing longer and longer until he at last began to cut it again. And his once gaunt face was now rugged and he resembled his father more and more by the day, his jaw line growing more defined, his cheeks filling in.

"You're becoming quite handsome," Talia commented once during their training, while she had him backed to a wall with her weapon. He flushed and in his distraction she sent him crashing to the ground. She laughed, loud and high. "You'll be a fine warrior yet."

Months went by and, at some point, his birthday came and went. Day by day he became better and faster in his training until Talia finally came to him and held a manilla folder out to him.

"Your first assignment," she explained as he opened it. "You're ready."

He nodded, throat tight, looking over his target, an angry looking Chinese man.

"Can you do it?" she asked after a moment and again he nodded.

"I'm ready."

The mark was easy enough. The man was a monster, from everything he'd read in the file, who preyed on others using the power he'd acquired in government. A sick pervert rapist, whose power granted him immunity to the repercussions of his actions.

Robin killed him in his sleep, as per the instructions. 'Make it quiet and fast' he'd been told, and so he suffocated him before the man even had time to react, and he was almost sickened at what little remorse he had after the fact.

Some people deserved to die, he thought as he pulled the blankets over the body, covering it.

And still, somehow it got easier from there, even with less justification.

As time went on, Robin thought less and less about his life before, so drowned out was it by the life after. But the pain from his death, brought about by the tea Talia had given him, never really went away. His skin always felt tight, as if it were burning, and every breath was a new, steady pain filling his chest. He ached in other ways, as well, that were difficult to describe. He suffered migraines and ringing in his ears, though that came and went more often.

"Meditation will help," Talia told him, as if it were just that easy to will the pain away. "It is," she had argued, "If you know how."

She had him sit for hours every week, sometimes daily, meditating, a task that came with some difficulty. The pain was a distraction that took a backseat to his constantly wandering mind, and he spent more of the time fidgeting than meditating.

Talia joined him on occasion, tsking him where needed, poking and prodding him into proper form and posture. And eventually he got the hang of it, learned to quickly tune it out everything around him such that he could sit in the middle of the loud mess hall, where he and the warriors took their meals, and not hear a sound other than what he wanted to hear.

And she was right, it helped with the pain, enough that it bothered him less when it mattered, though with only minor difference in the times between. But it was something.

And Talia beamed at him, after, as she always did, silent at his achievements but proud all the same.

She reminded him of Bruce, in that way. Never quick to praise aloud but always quietly satisfied, nonetheless.

Despite what Talia had told him, his dissociation with his past memories never really went away. He always thought of them like watching another version of himself in the mirror, going about a life he had merely dreamed had happened.

A strange version of deja vu came across him often. Something would remind him of that time in his life but it might be days before the connection was made. Certain people, certain events. A blonde woman in his bed who he only realized later reminded him of Artemis, which set him flushing anew. A spot of red hair in a sea of black while moving across rooftops to his next assignment.

Wally, his best friend, once upon a time.

And Talia herself a reflection of Bruce at all times, motherly in the same way as he had been fatherly.

And though he thought of his old life less and less, the reminders became moreso, until he found building within himself a nostalgia that this life couldn't quite quench.

And he dreamed too often of that old life, but more often of his death. Night after night was spent tossing and turning, his skin near feverish.

"You talk in your sleep," the blonde from before told him, the one who reminded him of Artemis. Sara was her given name, she had admitted to him once, but her new name always lost itself on his lips the moment he went to say it. In any case she'd found herself with the League after the death of her family in a fire, and she'd cast that old life away.

She lay stretched out next to him, naked, her legs entwined with his as he woke. He yawned and stretched out as well, turning to look her over. "Really?" he said playfully, plastering a tired smile across his face. He didn't feel it though. His skin was flush with the typical pain, his lungs burning, the lingering blood of his nightmares still tasting copper in his mouth.

"Sad things, yeah," she said after a bit, pulling herself to her feet and reaching for her clothes. "You cry out a lot, as if you were dying."

He let the smile fall from his face and she stared down at him with sad, hazel eyes. "It's alright," she said as she pulled her top on. "We all have our demons to bear. That's why we're here."

Except he didn't want to be there anymore.

Eventually the assignments became easier until killing his mark became nothing more than another tiresome chore. Gone was any need for justification, any hint of guilt or remorse, and he no longer questioned his orders.

The time between was spent training harder and harder until even Talia herself seemed to cast worried glances his way. But she never spoke up and so he didn't stop and when he asked for more assignments she handed them over to him wordlessly.

Until the day she refused him, her sharp eyes on him, making him feel small beneath her gaze despite the height he had now had over her.

"I have no assignments for you," she said, gesturing for him to follow her. He did as he was commanded, falling into step with her. She led him down a hall he'd never dared wander down, as avoided as it was by all the others, and she came to a door.

Inside was an ornate bedroom that could only be hers, decorated in all of the aesthetic she reeked of: deep reds and golds, all of the furniture complete with ornate and carved fixtures. He hesitated to follow her in but she nodded her assent and so he did, allowing her to close the door behind him.

He shifted uncomfortably in the chair offered to him and she herself sat on the bed. It was a mirror image, in a way, of his first time waking to her presence and he tried not to read too hard into her intentions for bringing him there.

"Your nightmares are getting worse," she commented and Robin looked away from her.

"How did you know about my nightmares?"

"I know everything that goes on here," she told him and the way she said it made him flush and think of the revolving door of people he'd had into his bed. And now he sat beside hers, awkward all the same.

She regarded him for but a moment before standing and walking across the room to a cabinet against the wall. She pulled from it a thick file, similar to the ones given to him for his assignments. She handed it to him as she retook her seat.

"You've now been here more than two years," she told him as he looked down at the file. "Open it."

Robin opened it and inside was his own picture, taken as an ID photo might be taken. It looked almost stock, taken for the many fake identities that were crafted for him to go about his assignments. Behind it were an assortment of papers and documents. A passport, a license registered to Gotham City, a social security card, a birth certificate, debit and credit cards., even resumes.

All issued under a false name: Robin Gray.

This was different than the other identities, this was thorough and complete.

He stared down at it, numb. "This is—"

"A new identity," she explained, "For your return to the states. It's everything you should need to start over, should you so choose when you get there."

This was it, the decision being made for him, as he had begged her to make it for him so many years earlier.

"It's time. I am releasing you from your oath to the League," she said.

He nodded but didn't say anything, words escaping him. He wanted to thank her and to refuse her in equal parts, but this was the decision, spread out in his hands. He was going home.

"The time may come where I may need to call on you once more, however," she began and he lifted his gaze from the folder to meet her eyes. "My father is a tyrant and a monster and his reign will soon fall at my hands. When the time is right."

The information settled over him heavy and he blinked, the pieces coming together. "We serve you," he echoed. "We answer to you."

She nodded. "I've spent a long time building my army from within. Everyone here, they are not my father's. The time may not come for years, but when it comes, I will need you. The League of Shadows will be mine, in time."

"I— I understand," he said. "This is the cost." Everything has a cost.

"Yes."