Patchwork Siblings: Timothy the Owl
A Batman fanfic by Raberba girl
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Summary: Sequel/Prequel to Patchwork Siblings, featuring the Timothy Drake of Charlie's original universe.
Part 1 - Timothy and Talons [rough draft]
"Grandmaster?"
Timothy looks up from his desk. "What is it?"
"It's...the Gray Son, sir."
For an instant, Timothy's heart leaps in his chest, but he quickly shoves it back down. Young Littlefield looks too apprehensive for the news to be good. "It's been found?" Timothy asks coolly, his eyes narrowing.
"Only some evidence of what might have happened to it. We found a security camera containing a recording of its last known movements."
"The Gray Son?" Timothy says in disbelief. "Careless enough to get caught on camera?"
"Would you...like my full report before you view the footage, sir...?" Littlefield, looking even more nervous now, takes a few steps closer and sets a flash drive on the desk.
"Perhaps later. You're dismissed."
"Yes, Grandmaster," Littlefield says, making a poor effort to disguise his relief. He bows and exits quickly.
Only once the door has completely shut behind him does Timothy lean forward to retrieve the flash drive. He pauses a moment to contemplatively turn the device over in his fingers, then straightens and inserts it into his computer.
There's only one file on the drive. Clicking on it triggers a video, grainy and dull, of those irritating vigilantes, the young ones who pose much more of a challenge to Timothy's plans than the Justice League ever has. Timothy watches as the group fights an unseen opponent - Talon, he presumes. As expected, the assassin is too skilled to allow itself to be captured on film.
That is, until a third party enters the fray. The rebel faction of the Titans, only slightly less irritating than their 'heroic' counterparts, ambush the original Titans. In the ensuing chaos, Timothy finally sees a glimpse of his favored Talon. Grayson is injured, but still clearly attempting to finish the mission. Timothy will have to decide on something small to reward it with - after its punishment for failing to avoid the camera is completed, of course.
It happens so quickly that Timothy misses it the first time. He quickly replays that portion of the video, this time with more focus.
There. Grayson is caught in a stray blast from an unidentified weapon. Its entire body is completely disintegrated - there's not a trace left.
The Gray Son is dead.
Timothy slumps back in his seat. He feels absolutely nothing at all as he watches the video to the end, wondering idly if Grayson will appear again. (If it does, Timothy will forgive it any punishment, just this once.) When there is no sign of Grayson, Timothy reaches out with those numb fingers and replays the video from the beginning.
He gleans nothing new. The Gray Son of Gotham is gone for good.
"An end unbefitting of you, my friend," Timothy murmurs.
He sighs, closes the video, and ejects the flash drive. He works for another twenty minutes, processing what he's just seen by carefully not thinking about it at all. After those mindless twenty minutes, he is able to access the Talon database and start highlighting candidates for the Court's next primary Talon. None of them are of Grayson's caliber, but that is only to be expected. Grayson was the best.
o.o.o
That night, it takes Timothy a long time to fall asleep. No matter how hard he tries to clear out the unproductive thoughts keeping him awake, he can't stop the stream of memories from replaying over and over in his mind.
He's been aware of the Court of Owls for as long as he can remember, but he was nine years old when the Court went from being a background presence to a major force in his life.
He'd been to Owls' parties before, of course. Gotham's elite were always hosting various social events, and his parents brought him along every so often. However, that particular event had been the first one Timothy attended where all the guests were Owls, where there was no need to hide their affiliation. It was their faces they hid instead, behind birdlike white masks that frightened Timothy when he was first confronted by a roomful of them.
A foolish reaction, of course, since Timothy himself was masked along with both his parents. When they'd first donned the masks in the car before entering the building, it seemed almost funny, like his parents were childishly playing dress-up. Inside, however, where sinister repetitions of the same artificial, inhuman face stretched away in every direction he looked, nine-year-old Timothy felt his skin bunch up in gooseflesh, and he wanted nothing more than to go home.
Out of the question, of course. His parents were here, and had brought him, for a reason. Timothy and several other children were making their official debut.
That's not the part Timothy dwells on now. At the time, it was quite distressing, but in hindsight, it was simply another mundane night for most of the Owls, who were probably paying more attention to the food and their internal politics than to a cluster of nervous children.
The part Timothy does dwell on is that that was the first time he saw the Talons. The Court has always had human servants and underlings, but spare Talons were sometimes used for mindless labor as well, and of course there are always Talons standing guard at Owl-only functions. Young Timothy watched as a Talon, all tricked out in deadly armor and weapons yet carrying a tray of appetizers like a waiter, slowly moved through the crowd, pausing whenever an Owl reached to pluck a morsel from the tray.
He wasn't brave enough to take food from the mysterious figure himself, but he did eventually go up to the identically-shrouded guards standing spaced apart along the walls. He looked at the first one for a long time, waiting for it to show some sign of life, but it didn't so much as twitch. He moved on to the next one, and the next, and eventually drew on enough courage to touch the creature's arm. Still, nothing happened. The fourth one, he actually poked, then said, "Are you alive in there?"
"No, Master," the guard replied tonelessly, making Timothy jump.
"You're...not alive?" he said in confusion.
"Affirmative, Master."
"How are you talking, then?"
"My body and brain are animated by electrum."
"Oh." Timothy bit his lip, then slowly backed away, having reached the limit of his daring. "Thank you for explaining," he said politely, even though he hadn't understood the explanation.
"Yes, Master."
Young Timothy didn't try to provoke the Talons again that night, but he did watch them whenever his attention was not needed elsewhere, a little unsettled but also fascinated.
Later, in the car on the way home, Timothy asked his parents about them. "Mom? Dad? Who were those people at the party in bird masks?"
His mother burst into startled laughter, and his father said incredulously, "What? Timothy, that was the Court of Owls!"
"I know that," Timothy said impatiently. "I meant the ones with weapons, who didn't really talk. They were serving drinks and standing along the wall."
"Oh, them," his father said, laughing in a way that would have been dismissive if it hadn't sounded so nervous.
"It's like in the nursery rhyme, son," Janet said in a sweetly condescending tone. "Beware the Court of Owls, that watches all the time..."
Timothy automatically joined in, chanting the rest of the verse without thinking. "...or they'll send the Talon for your head." He paused, still not understanding. "So if the ones in fancy outfits were the Owls, then the ones in the other bird masks were...?"
"The Talons, Tim, the Talons," Jack said quickly. "Use your head. Who else would they be?"
"But I mean, there were a lot of them. The rhyme makes it sound like there's only one, so-"
"Respectable people don't discuss this subject, Timothy," his father said firmly.
"...Oh," Timothy said, taken aback and suddenly ashamed, even though a part of him wished he could still ask questions.
"Just be a good boy and you'll never have to worry about any bogeyman coming for your head," Janet said airily. "Now, Jack, I think we did rather well, didn't we? The Jeffersons listened for a whole ten minutes to what you were saying about..."
That was the last Timothy learned of the Talons from his parents, but it was far from his final interaction with the creatures. From then on, he conducted his research alone.
He only tried small things at first. Even right from the beginning, he had the instinctive sense to keep all his interaction with the Talons a secret. He was careful not to engage them unless all the adults were distracted or not present.
He found that the Talons did not respond at all to prodding or other nonverbal provocation. When he spoke to them, they replied as succinctly as possible. He had to drag information out of them bit by bit, and use more questions to get them to elaborate.
"Are you a person?"
"No, Master."
"But you're not an inanimate object."
"I am a tool to serve the Court of Owls."
"What kind of serving do you usually do?"
"I do anything my masters require."
"Have you ever cut off anyone's head?"
"Yes, Master."
"Have you ever tortured anyone?"
"Yes, Master."
"Have you ever done anything you really didn't want to do just because an Owl ordered you to?"
"I exist only to serve my masters."
"My name is Tim. Do you have a name other than 'Talon'?"
"No, Master."
"How do you tell the other Talons apart?"
At last, a pause, puzzled at first and then slightly panicked. (Timothy wasn't sure how he could tell, but he just somehow got that sense from the creature.)
"The way they move, Master."
"So what do Owls call you if they're talking to more than one of you?"
"The masters indicate us as they will."
Timothy gave up on that line of questioning. "Have you always been a Talon?" He was wondering if they started out sort of like [. . .], a race of metas who got recruited into service as Talons.
"As long as I can remember, Master."
"So you don't remember anything before becoming a Talon?"
"No, Master."
"You just woke up one day and you were in the Court of Owls, wearing a bird mask?"
"...Yes, Master," the Talon said warily.
"Would you kill me if an Owl ordered you to?"
"Yes, Master."
Timothy blinked, finally a little unsettled for the first time in this interrogation. "Oh. Would you at least move slow enough for me to escape?"
"I must obey my masters."
"If two Owls gave you conflicting orders, which one would you obey?" Timothy tried.
"I would follow the orders of the highest-ranked Owl."
Timothy nodded at the confirmation. As a child, he probably had one of the lowest ranks in the organization. He'd have to remedy that eventually, preferably sooner rather than later. "Do you like chocolate?" he asked on impulse.
There was another hesitation. "As my master wishes."
"Here." Timothy dug a small piece of candy out of his pocket and slipped it to the Talon. "Eat that when you're alone."
"Yes, Master."
Timothy thought about it. "Then the next time you see me and no one else is paying attention, tell me if you liked it."
"Ye- ...Yes, Master."
Pondering the exchange later, it occurred to Timothy that it would actually be a very good idea to start deliberately coaxing as many Talons as he could to favor him. Although the Owls held the true power in the Court, the vast majority of them were physically useless, used to having others perform their labor for them.
It was the Talons who had the physical capability of fighting and using force; the only thing stopping them from running the place was whatever brainwashing they'd been subjected to during their training. If Timothy could eventually lure at least some of them into loyalty to himself, that could someday be extremely useful. Not only would he then have some protection, but maybe he could eventually make some general improvements. The Court was wasting its enhanced private army on assassinations for petty, selfish reasons and menial work that any human could do. There were better uses than that for indestructible, immortal warriors.
TBC