Patchwork Siblings, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
Chapter 2 - Talon Acquired [rough draft]
Tim is discouraged but unsurprised to see Talon hovering on a nearby rooftop when he gets out of the car. Tim doesn't have time to deal with Talon; he's got to see if there's still any fight left for him to photograph.
He's a little too late - the fight itself is over; all the henchmen who are still ambulatory have run away, and Two-Face is no longer in any state to fight back. Batman is beating the crap out of him, and Tim only takes pictures out of obligation. There's no art in Two-Face's limp body or the enraged twist of Batman's jaw. The best Tim can do is capture flying droplets and strings of blood when Batman rears back his arm for another punch, but even that makes Tim feel a little sick.
At least Two-Face deserves it more than the poor small-time crooks Batman's been terrorizing lately, but still. Batman's been hovering right on the line ever since Robin died. It's only a matter of time before he crosses that line and kills someone, unless he gets killed first. Tim grits his teeth as frustration and sympathetic pain well up in his chest, but he doesn't know what to do. He can't bring Robin back, and he doesn't know how else to help Batman.
Emergency vehicles approach and Batman finally retreats so he won't be found in the carnage. Tim leaves, too, making his way down the streets, lost in thought, now barely even registering Talon's watchful presence.
A cluster of men talking quietly to each other go silent and watch when Tim passes by. "Hey, kid, you lost?" one of them calls out in a superficially friendly tone.
Tim's heart rate picks up, but he doesn't react at all other than to slip out his phone to summon another rideshare.
Footsteps behind him. "Hey, kiddo, you know it's not safe out here - Two-Face is makin' trouble nearby. Lemme give you a ride home."
"No, thank you," Tim says firmly, marching onward, dismayed as the rest of the group falls in around him. "Batman took care of Two-Face, and my parents are waiting for me."
A different man scoffs and mutters, low enough to seem more like he's talking to himself than to Tim, "Baby like you out alone on the streets this time of night, no way you got parents."
The first man shoves him back and moves to block Tim's way. "Don't be scared, now, I'm gonna look after you. I got a place you can stay, warm bed, good food, everything." He reaches for Tim's arm as he speaks.
Tim breaks the hold in a self-defense move he learned a while back and tries to make a run for it. Of course he's grabbed by the others, who start to drag him away.
Then there's a confusion of struggling, shouts of pain, the clattering of dropped or thrown weapons, and the smell of blood. By the time Tim recovers from the disorientation, he finds himself standing free. The four would-be traffickers are cursing as they kneel, bound up together in pennant tape which has one end still attached to the storefront Talon stole it from. The men are all bleeding heavily from their legs, and the ground is strewn with the guns and knives they'd attempted to draw.
Talon, gripping the loose end of the pennant tape in one hand and a dripping knife in the other, is looking at Tim. "Shall I kill them, Master?" they ask impassively. The traffickers yell louder and struggle harder in response; Talon knocks them all out so swiftly that Tim needs to replay the moment in his memory to figure out what happened. The men now slump unconscious, hanging in the incongruously colorful tape.
"No," Tim gasps out, despite the brief impulse to get these scum off the streets permanently. Batman wouldn't wanted them to be murdered. "You can, um, tie them up more securely and leave them for the police to find, and put a note on them saying that they tried to traffic a child. Then get out of here so the police don't try to arrest you, too."
"Yes, Master."
As soon as Talon starts obeying the orders, Tim runs again, waiting to call a rideshare until he's a healthy distance away. As soon as he gets home, he curls up in bed and tries to sleep.
He must manage it eventually, because the next thing he's aware of is his alarm going off. He groans and hits snooze four times in row, then finally manages to drag himself upright. He sits there for a while, blearily wishing he didn't have to go to school, a corner of his mind noting that it's darker than usual for this time of the morning.
Then he finally registers the masked figure standing by his bed, staring at him.
Instantly awake, Tim shrieks and jerks away so violently that he falls off the bed. He continues scrambling until his back hits the wall, then stares, wide-eyed and trembling and panting, as Talon stands in his bedroom and stares back.
"Wh-Wh-What are you d-doing here?!" Tim finally manages, his heart still going a mile a minute.
"I got out of there," Talon reports calmly. "Now I am here."
"Yeah?!"
"...Will the police try to arrest me here, Master?"
"Oh, crap," Tim breathes. He witnessed an act of vigilantism, told the vigilante to run, and the new mystery vigilante apparently decided that Drake Manor was a great place to run to. "N-No, not unless they saw you. Did anyone see you come here?"
"No one ever sees me if I'm trying to hide."
"And were you trying to hide after you took care of those guys?!" Tim demands frantically.
"Yes."
"Oh. Good." Tim buries his face in his hands. He does not know what to do.
Well...Talon did rescue him from a terrible fate that Tim nearly walked into due to being distracted and careless. They are owed some gratitude, at least.
Tim lifts his face out of his hands. "Uh, thank you for saving me, by the way."
Talon stares at him and says nothing.
"Sooo... I'm definitely grateful, but I...have to get ready for school. So I won't be late."
Still no response.
"Can you leave?" Tim asks tentatively.
"I...I can leave the room if you so wish, Master."
"Can you leave the house? Or, even, you know, the entire neighborhood?"
"Do you command me to go out into the sunlight, Master?" Talon asks in a small voice, and Tim suddenly realizes why the room seems so dark. The thick curtains are completely shut, blocking out almost all the light.
"Does...does sunlight hurt you?"
"It will damage my eyes. What are your orders, Master?"
Tim sighs deeply. "Screw it, I'm taking a sick day." He goes downstairs, shadowed at first by Talon. When Talon shrinks back on the staircase, Tim starts covering all the windows, after which Talon gratefully ventures after him on silent feet.
Tim logs onto his father's computer, sends an email excusing himself from school, then turns to regard his strange houseguest. He's way too wired to go back to bed, and if Talon's going to be stuck in the house all day, Tim is going to have to learn more about them, starting with the basics. "Hey, so, like... I've kind of been assuming you're a guy, but I actually have no idea." Talon's outfit covers 100% of their body and is armored enough to give them a neutral figure. "Are, uh, are you? Or...?"
Talon cocks their head in a birdlike way. "...This Talon is male."
"Okay. Cool. Hi, Talon. I'm Tim." For lack of anything better to do, Tim extends his hand.
He was expecting Talon to shake it. Not to carefully take Tim's hand in both his own and gently touch his forehead to the back of it. "Yes, Master."
"Um, so...maybe don't call me 'Master'? Please? It...makes me uncomfortable."
"...What do you command me to call you?"
"Just...just call me Tim."
There's a long silence.
"Or Timothy. Either one." Tim bites his lip at Talon's obvious reluctance.
"...Tim," Talon finally says, very quietly.
Tim exhales in relief and smiles. "Yeah! Just like that." He fidgets. "Are you, uh, hungry?"
Talon tilts his head again.
"Do you have a face under there? I mean, do you have any objection to taking off your mask?"
There's a slight pause, then Talon reaches up and removes his headgear.
Tim draws in a breath. He was curious to see his stalker's face, and what is now revealed is both better and worse than what he was expecting. Talon is definitely not a baseline human. His skin is an unsettling shade of gray, his eyes are bright gold, and some of his veins are black and prominent. He squints a bit in the remnants of sunlight peeking around the edges of the curtains.
"Is the light hurting your eyes?"
"It isn't strong enough to be damaging."
"Okay. You can still wear the goggles if you want."
Talon quickly places the goggles over his eyes and visibly relaxes.
Tim nods and leads the way into the kitchen. "So, are you a metahuman?"
"...I am a Talon."
"Uh huh," Tim says uncertainly, re-thinking his assumption that 'Talon' is the man's given name. "Is 'Talon' your name?"
"I am called Talon."
"But you said you're 'a' Talon. Is there more than one?"
"Yes."
"Do you have a personal name?" Tim asks, starting to hunt through the cupboards for something other than cereal and Pop-Tarts to offer his...guest.
"...I am Talon," the Talon says. He sounds a little stressed, and Tim glances back at him.
"Do you want me to just keep calling you 'Talon'?"
"I am Talon," Talon says, now sounding less stressed.
"Okay. Um, so...why did you attack those guys?"
"Those men were threatening an Owl."
"...An owl. You mean me, right?" Tim says, remembering their earlier conversation.
"Yes."
Tim knows better than to ask for clarification on what the heck 'owls' are the way Talon uses the term. He tries instead, "So owls are important enough to be protected?"
"Yes."
"What makes me an owl?"
Silence. Tim looks over his shoulder and finds that Talon is utterly still and expressionless. "Are you angry?" Tim ventures nervously.
"No!" Talon bursts out.
"Okay," Tim says, mentally noting that his new 'friend' seems to dislike inquiries into Tim's supposed nature as an 'owl.'
Feeling a little trepidation, Tim piles his scavenged goods on the counter. "Okay, so, all I've got that's ready to eat is Froot Loops, Cheerios, strawberry Pop-Tarts, Doritos, potato chips, pretzels, dried peaches, raisins, peanut butter, and canned beans. I can heat up the beans in the microwave for you or make you a sandwich with the peanut butter. There's strawberry jam in the fridge, and some lunch meat and cheese if you want a different kind of sandwich. But that's...about it, sorry."
There's a long silence.
"Uh, so...which of these do you want to eat?" Tim asks. "You can have anything you like."
Talon still doesn't answer, but he cocks his head in that birdlike way of his. Tim follows the man's line of sight and taps at one of the cereal boxes. "You want Froot Loops?"
"...'Froot Loops,' " Talon repeats, sounding very cautious.
"Cool." Tim pours some cereal and milk into a bowl, sets a spoon into it, then pushes it in front of Talon. Talon looks at the bowl, then at Tim.
"Can you eat food?" Tim wonders.
"Human sustenance is absorbed by my body," Talon murmurs. He picks up the spoon and starts to eat. At the first taste of sugary cereal on his tongue, his eyes widen. He pauses, then swallows and starts shoveling more into his mouth.
"You like it?" Tim says, probably unnecessarily.
Talon swallows his current mouthful without chewing. Tim guiltily resolves to stop asking him questions while he's eating. "Yes."
"Okay. Cool." Tim pours some cereal for himself.
After a while, the silence gets to be too much for him, so he tries to time his next question to be after Talon swallows but before he takes another bite. "So are there other 'owls' besides me?"
"Yes."
"What do they do?"
"They are masters. They own the city."
Tim feels a chill. That doesn't sound good. "What do you mean by 'own the city'?"
"They...rule from the shadows."
"And...Talons like you help them rule?" Tim asks carefully.
"Talons obey orders."
"What kinds of orders are you usually given?"
"The majority of Talon's missions are for assassination or surveillance."
Tim swallows and notices that his hands have started to shake. The stranger in his home is a freaking assassin for some sort of secret society. "So...you, uh, kill people a lot?"
"Yes."
"Because the Owls order you to?" He's started to capitalize the term in his thoughts.
"Yes."
Tim considers for a moment, then says nervously, "And I'm an Owl, right?"
"Yes."
"So if I ordered you to not kill anyone, you would obey?"
Talon sounds a little confused, but he answers readily, "Yes."
Tim draws in a deep breath. "Okay. So. Um, I, as an Owl, command that you don't kill anyone if you can possibly avoid it. If anyone ever threatens me again, you can just incapacitate them and give them to the police. Okay?"
"...Yes, Mas- Tim." Talon looks at him warily. Tim deliberately takes another bite of cereal. Talon mirrors him.
Tim waits for Talon to swallow, then asks, "Do you like killing people?"
"...My purpose is to obey the orders of the Court."
"What Court?"
Talon frowns minutely. "The Court of Owls."
The phrase rings a faint bell in Tim's mind, particularly when paired with the word 'Talon.' Setting it aside to look into more later, he asks slowly, "Have you always been with the...the Court of Owls?"
There's a noticeable hesitation. "Talon remembers only the Court of Owls."
"So...does that mean you don't have any family?"
"Talon serves the Court of Owls."
"Hmmm." The interrogation isn't really going anywhere, so Tim just focuses on eating. The silence quickly grows awkward - at least, Tim finds it awkward, but Talon, after a few minutes have passed without anymore questions, seems to be wholly focused on his cereal.
TBC
