Patchwork Siblings, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

Chapter 9 - Counterparts [rough draft]

Bruce researches the Drake family. He doesn't like what he finds, though not for the reasons he expected. He can't find any documented link between any of the Drakes and Jason, but what he does discover is that Jack and Janet leave the country for long periods of time and their twelve-year-old son, Timothy, basically lives alone. It's confirmation of the things Janet unintentionally implied when Bruce talked to her on the phone.

"Who is the third person?" Bruce asks Jason. "The meta who looks like Dick? Is he a shapeshifter?"

Jason's only reply is to hold the book he might or might not actually be reading higher in front of his face. He's been sulking all day.

"Whoever he is, I doubt Jack and Janet know about him. He somehow gained Timothy's trust, and yours, and has the run of Drake Manor and Gotham. What's his goal? Will Timothy be in danger if I try to separate them?"

"I want Tees."

"No, Jason."

"Eff you," Jason says, with the book still in front of his face. He has a hard time pronouncing most profanity these days.

o.o.o

That night, Bruce works on the Batcomputer instead of going out on patrol. After a while, after his typical departure time, the security system alerts him to the fact that Jason has just attempted to leave the manor.

Bruce goes to find his son. Jason is yanking at the doorknob of the mudroom, looking vaguely annoyed.

"Jason," Bruce says, "it's late. You're supposed to be in bed."

"Tea time," Jason says, which baffles Bruce until he realizes it was actually 'T time,' as in Timothy and Talon, not the drink.

"No," Bruce says. "You don't have permission."

Jason slams a fist against the door. "Tees!"

Bruce drags him down to the cave and tries to distract him. Jason briefly gets caught up in a modified sparring match, then frowns and starts drifting down the vehicle path that leads out of the cave. "No, Jason," Bruce says, pulling him back.

Jason throws a tantrum and Bruce is not able to get him to sleep until well past three in the morning. He doesn't go on patrol that night.

o.o.o

The night after that, Bruce is more prepared. He drugs Jason's dinner.

"Bruce," Alfred says severely when he realizes what happened.

Bruce swallows. He knows he's screwed up whenever Alfred is angry enough to drop the honorific. "It's for his own safety. I can't keep staying home to watch him, Gotham can't afford to be left unsupervised a second night in a row."

"You need a better solution than this, sir," Alfred says coldly, getting a shoulder under Jason's unconscious body and hoisting him up.

"I will. I will, Alfred, I promise. I just need to get to the bottom of this Timothy Drake thing. Jason could really be in danger."

Alfred's face softens just slightly, though he doesn't give any other acknowledgment before carrying Jason away to his room.

o.o.o

Tim and Talon's Batman hunt is successful that night. Once Tim's pinned down his location, Talon gets them there, and they are both so, so quiet as they stalk their prey. Batman seems troubled and suspicious, but no matter how much he stops and looks around, Tim is pretty sure he never actually sees them.

Tim gets some good shots of Batman grappling off the GCPD roof and, a little later, fighting Penguin's goons. He manages to grab a couple more decent shots of Batman brooding on a cathedral among the gargoyles, but despite Talon's efforts to find a good perch without being detected, Tim can't quite find the right angle, so those pictures don't come out as well as he'd like. Still, it's a good night, even if it ends with Tim and Talon having to sleep like homeless people again. Things could be a lot worse.

o.o.o

Bruce is slumped at his desk at work, forcing lunch into his mouth one bite at a time, trying to stay awake long enough to finish this stack of paperwork before he takes his afternoon nap.

His personal phone pings. He glances at it. When he sees that it's a text from Dick, a little burst of adrenaline sends him jolting upright and he snatches up his phone.

back on prime

Finally. Dick's been on a long mission with the Titans in some sort of alternate universe, so there was no way to contact him until now.

Can you come to Gotham? Bruce texts rapidly. There have been major developments.

*actual* maj dev or u jus miss me?

Bruce did miss Dick rather a lot, but that isn't the point. Jason came back to us.

There's a long pause as Bruce stares at his phone, waiting for Dick to reply. He's a little startled when the phone buzzes with a call instead of another text message. "Dick?"

"Bruce, what?"

"Jason's back," Bruce says, a little breathlessly. "I don't know how. He just appeared in the manor with no explanation, injured and with severe brain damage. But he's alive, Dick. It's really him."

"I need to talk to Alfred," Dick says brusquely, and hangs up.

Bruce sighs, looks at his paperwork, and wonders if maybe he should just give up for the day and go home.

o.o.o

Jason is annoyed. Dickhead is here and being really loud and keeps grabbing him. Jason likes hugs, but not like this, so fast and sudden. His brain's not working right these days, it's hard to process things and he knows he loses a lot of time. He wishes Dick would slow down, the way Alfie and sometimes Dad do.

Jason escapes the grabby hug and goes to find a safe, quiet place to hide in for a while. Dad has been being really, really stupid and annoying lately. Jason really wants to see Little T and Big-T-who-looks-like-Dick-but-isn't (he sometimes forgets their names, especially not-Dick's because he looks so confusing, but Jason almost always remembers that both names start with the letter T). The Tees have fun adventures in the city and let Jason come along even though he's broken now. Dad doesn't trust him to be Robin anymore, Dad doesn't trust him for anything.

And, okay, Jason knows that he's too broken to be Robin right now. But he can still go into the city and help. The Tees let him help. But Dad doesn't, and Dad doesn't even let him see the Tees. He keeps getting all Batman about them even though they're good. Big T is softer and quieter with Jason than Dick is, and Little T is so helpful and does all the thinking that Jason can't do right now. Jason can trust them. But Dad doesn't, and it's annoying.

Jason doesn't know how long he's been back here, but his body aches, so it's probably been a lot longer than it feels. He should come out and go find Dad so that Dad can stop worrying.

But if Dickface still wants to be loud and grabby, then too bad; Jason will go hide again.

o.o.o

That night, Batman has teamed up with Nightwing, who hasn't been in the news for a while. Tim seizes the opportunity to snap as many photos as he can, though Nightwing seems to be more focused and less interesting than usual outside of combat. Despite the sheer quantity of photos, the only actual good ones Tim gets that night are of Nightwing in various gorgeous fighting poses. He grabs some videos with his phone, too, even though his filming skills are even worse than his photography ones. Even if the footage is shaky and filmed with subpar settings, it's still worth getting the chance to rewatch Dick Grayson in physical action.

Talon is always alert and interested during patrol except for when stakeouts run too long, but he seems especially fascinated by Nightwing. He nearly blows his cover several times, leaning too far out of the shadows to see better, and he keeps making quiet exclamations like, "Yes!" and "That was a good one!" and "Talon forgot about that one!" Once or twice, he copies the moves right then and there. Although he does have his superpowers to help him, Tim is still a little shocked at how perfectly he nails them, right down to the trademark Grayson bodily grace.

Something about it sits oddly in Tim's mind. He contemplates it off and on throughout the rest of patrol, wondering why his brain is drawing such a random connection between Talon and Nightwing. Why does his subconscious think there's more to it than Talon simply being a good mimic?

"Tim, please watch, I will astound and amaze you!"

Distracted again, though this time by his companion rather than their quarry or passersby, Tim looks up from the photos he's been reviewing. Talon has been cavorting around the other end of the roof for a while; now, with Tim watching, he goes through an Olympics-level gymnastics floor routine, ending with a flourish and smiling proudly.

"That was very impressive, Talon," Tim says truthfully. "Where did you learn that?"

"Will Tim be displeased if Talon remembers things from Before?"

"Huh? No, of course not. Whatever you can remember of your old life before the cult is great."

"Oh. I will ask what a 'cult' is later. Now I will answer the question! I watched someone do that routine Before." He watches Tim, eyes intent and not entirely without anxiety.

"I see," Tim says. "Good," he adds, just to get Talon to relax a little. "What kind of life did you have before, that you would have been able to learn gymnastics so well?"

"The Before life... With the colors. And the people." Talon fidgets in a weirdly careful way. "Before I was Talon."

The niggling feeling in the back of Tim's mind starts jumping up and down, waving its figurative arms. If Talon was not always Talon, that means he used to be someone else. Technically still is someone else. Tim is kicking himself for not looking into it sooner. "Hey, Talon, say cheese."

Talon knows by now that 'Say cheese' translates to 'you're about to get photographed,' but he still literally says "Cheese" anyway as he strikes a pose and gifts Tim's camera with a brilliant smile.

"Thanks, Talon," Tim says. "All right, it's getting late. Let's wrap things up and head back to our home away from home."

o.o.o

They go back to their safehouse, but Tim can't sleep because he's so impatient to acquire electricity and decent lighting. After he tosses and turns restlessly for a while, Talon suddenly drags Tim into his lap and wraps him up in his arms, stroking his hair and humming to him. Tim's ear resting against Talon's chest doesn't detect any sound of a heartbeat or regular breathing, but he does sense the thrum of the soft music and the irregular flow of air Talon's using to create it. Safe and soothed, Tim finally manages to doze off.

He's still up at the crack of dawn, dragging Talon to get breakfast and coffee. "Tim, please do not drink the poison," Talon pleads, hands curled around Tim's cup even though he doesn't tighten his grip enough to prevent Tim from lifting the cup to sip from.

"I told you, Talon, it's not poison," Tim says as patiently as he can. They have this argument almost every morning. "I've gotten used to the taste, and it makes my head feel good."

"It tastes like poison," Talon pouts. "Your mouth will like apple juice better."

"Just because your mouth likes it better doesn't mean mine will," Tim points out. "Talon, let go of my coffee and drink your juice."

Talon obeys, but he scoots close and rests a hand against Tim's chest, reassuring himself with the feel of the boy's heartbeat.

Afterward, they go wait outside the library so they can enter as soon as the doors are unlocked. Tim makes a beeline for the most convenient wall outlet and plugs his phone in so that it will have enough charge to run his facial recognition program.

He ends up not needing it, though he'll still check the results to confirm his guess. As he's waiting, he spots something relevant on the magazine display across the room. "Talon, will you please fetch me that magazine that says 'Most Eligible Bachelors' on the cover?"

Talon bounds to obey, carrying the magazine back to him as proudly as a puppy learning to play fetch. Tim takes the magazine and flips through it until he finds the article about eligible bachelors. Bruce Wayne is on the list, but Dick Grayson, as the most objectively good-looking of the bunch, has the most prominent photograph. Tim holds the magazine up beside Talon's face.

It's an eerily close match, especially since Talon's got his human-colored makeup on and contacts in. "How is this possible?" Tim whispers. He just saw Nightwing last night. Did something happen to Dick Grayson, and the Bats used a stand-in for Nightwing so as not to rouse suspicion?

"Talon, please guard my phone." While the facial recognition program still runs, Tim signs onto a public computer and starts researching. He doesn't find much, but he at least confirms that neither Dick Grayson nor Nightwing were seen in public for a while before last night, and that Grayson was spotted refueling his motorcycle the day before. So...if Talon looks so similar to Dick Grayson but is not actually Dick Grayson, who is he?

Tim logs off the computer and returns to his phone. "It did a new thing!" Talon announces, presenting the device.

The facial recognition program announces Richard Grayson's face as the closest match for Talon's. The smile is what clinches things. Of course the coloring is different, and the facial structure could perhaps be explained by a close genetic relationship. But Talon's smile, and the smile Dick Grayson is making in the program's reference photo... There's no way two different people could have the exact. Same. Smile. It's baffling.

Tim looks up at Talon and whispers, "Dick?"

Talon goes utterly still, his eyes wide.

"Are you...your real name...is it Dick? Richard Grayson?"

"...Talon is not permitted to be Dick anymore," Talon whispers. "Only the Gray Son. The Court's Talon."

"I'm permitting you. You said I'm an Owl, right?"

"Tim-Owl."

"Yeah, well, Tim-Owl permits you to be anyone you want to be or use any name you want to use."

Tears start streaming down Talon's- Dick's face, unnervingly silent.

"Okay, Dick?" Tim pushes after a moment.

"I obey Master," Dick whispers after a long pause. His face twitches. "Tim. I obey Tim."

"Do you...want to be called Dick? Or Talon, or something else?"

The man shifts restlessly. "I...do not...want to be Talon, if it's permitted. I am...grateful that- that you give Dick back to me. But...I am not...Dick anymore. Dick is safe. Dick...does not have..." He looks at his hands, perhaps seeing invisible blood there.

"We can pick a different name for you," Tim offers. "Hey, we're in a library, I bet they have-"

The library does have a book of baby names; several, in fact. Tim and his meta friend page through the books for over an hour, taking their time, until the man who used to be Dick and definitely isn't Talon anymore settles on a new name that he likes.

"Charlie," Tim tests. His friend latched onto the meaning, 'free man,' but preferred the diminutive form to the full 'Charles.' He also had a bit of a hang-up about his original surname, which was ruined by the Court of Owls titling him 'the Gray Son' while they worked to destroy him. "Is that your final choice?"

His friend makes a thumbs-up, grinning.

Tim grins back. "Okay, then. I'm really happy for you, Charlie." He has no idea how to even begin to solve the Grayson mystery, but whoever the man is or isn't, he's been living with and doting on Tim all this time and Tim really cares about him, and it feels good to help him like this.

"Charlie loves Tim!" Charlie says warmly.

Tim feels his face heating up. "Love you, too, Charlie," he murmurs, and lets himself be hugged.

TBC