Bruce watched as Ella left his sons' portion of the cell again. Tim had tried speaking with her at every meal so far, but she was adamantly staying quiet. Tim felt guilty that she may have been punished after he pushed Jason to try and make a break for it, but there was little to be done about that now. Bruce had spent the last few days strategizing in his own head. He knew they were being watched so he couldn't afford to give their captors the upper hand by letting his sons in on anything. Unfortunately, Bruce could see this was leading to another fight with Jason about how he dictates things without involving anyone else. Dictate and dictator had become Jason's favorite words to use against Bruce as soon as he learned them in 7th grade history. He hoped his second oldest would wait until after they were free to pick a serious though.

His biggest concern was their rebreathers. Once they were out of their cells, they had to prioritize finding the breathing equipment the Court uses to come and go as they please. They would have to choose the stealthier option and smuggle the equipment out before making a break for it. Bruce knew they couldn't fight an entire compound of unnatural metas; especially after their lengthy imprisonment. The monitor was left just outside of their cells for a while now and Bruce found it easier not to watch the screen. It was probably a couple minutes behind live footage but every now and then they would see Dick be escorted out of the cell and then brought back hours later. Sometimes he was wet, sometimes he was bloody, and sometimes he just found the closest corner to collapse in, usually when he was carried in from being beaten near-unconscious.

Bruce had given up on trying to redirect his boys elsewhere from the screen. Damian watched the monitor fanatically while Jason and Tim only watched while Dick was there. As much as it pained him to witness the passive and painful captivity of his son, he was rather glad that they could see Dick. The intent behind leaving footage of him was obviously to hurt him and his boys, but he knew that behind their pained faces, they were drawing strength from seeing Dick for the first time in months. Bruce knew Dick was most likely faring worse. He thrived on his family's support and attention; his imprisonment coupled with his near-isolation must be driving the poor boy insane. Bruce tried not to think too hard about how Dick was faring but it was hard not to when he talked to himself frequently. He often repeated the words 'Gray Son' and lashed out at his surroundings. One time he said the words 'Gray Son' to the tune of 'Happy Birthday'; and no one found they could ignore him for that day.

Earlier today, Dick had lashed out and punched the wall in front of him. He broke off a fist-sized chunk and then some, and then proceeded to pick and peel at the flayed skin on his knuckles. Bruce looked to his sons, expectantly finding their eyes glued religiously to their brother's actions. Damian was doing his best to keep his face unreadable but instead displayed a portion of every mixed and warbled emotion across his eyes and mouth. His sons weren't doing well but Bruce knew that worrying over something he was incapable of changing at the moment wouldn't do him any good. He wanted to make sure they were well rested and eating well, not calculating how much emotional physiatry would be required after this. Knowing this didn't help one bit. The Batman felt weak and useless and he despised himself almost as much as when his son first died. He was stuck between feeling angry for his son, at Slade, or at Cobb.

There were too many villains and cruel souls in this world for people like his children to exist. Damian had too much life yet to live, Tim had so much to learn and experience, and Jason was, only recently learning to relax his emotional barriers.

"Watch," Slade said quietly, pulling Bruce from his stupor, "The girl has an electronic key card on her person somewhere"

Bruce turned to Slade, ready to snap at him when he stopped. Slade was facing forward and he was studying the dirt under his nails like he'd never spoken.

"How do you know that?" Bruce asked irritably. He was frustrated that he couldn't strangle the mercenary now but he'd tried multiple times ever since Slade admitted to lying about his involvement with Dick's death and kidnapping. He hadn't stopped trying for a while but the chains wouldn't allow him out far enough to even touch the contract killer.

Wilson looked away from Bruce as he casually studied a crack on the far wall, "The door shifts slightly when she approaches"

Slade murmured so softly that his lips didn't even move. Bruce narrowed in on what Slade was seemingly planning.

"There is still a biometric scanner print" Bruce reminded him quietly.

Slade shrugged, "We could always take her with us….Or just the hand"

Bruce glowered at Slade's proposal but didn't respond as he started to plan out strategies and backup plans. If they really did manage to subdue the Ella girl, they could bodily move the young girl everywhere to make sure they could access any rooms needed. If she had some sort of key card that unlocked an additional layer of security at a closer distance, that would only be an added benefit. That would mean that they'd have to do so when either Bruce, Jason, or Slade were being fed, which lessened their chances slightly. Bruce didn't trust Tim to subdue her enough and Damian might not be able to hold his own against a meta his size. Deathstroke might just kill the girl altogether, so Bruce was hesitant about letting him be the one to break them out and initiate their escape. They would have to start gathering information from her as well somehow. They couldn't break out and not have any idea where the breathing masks or Dick were being kept. They might even have a larger monitoring or control area where outside communications were managed and sent from. Bruce suspected that Clark would have already found them if it weren't for the defenses the Court had in place, like the oxygen. At this point, Bruce was very open to the idea of kryptonite-infused metal plating amongst the sewer foundation layers above them.

If they managed to send out a message, someone from the League could trace them back here. Most likely Barbara or Dinah; but still someone.

Just then, Ella entered his cell and Bruce watched the door like a hawk. Just as Slade described it, the door shifted slightly, maybe not even a whole centimeter, as Ella approached. She was in full combat gear without the actual armor and half the usual weapons. She held her palm against a small flat electronic padlock and the barred cell door clicked open. She stepped inside while balancing a plastic tray in her other hand. She made her way over to Bruce and set the tray down in front of him. Without a word of acknowledgment, she reached around and undid one of Bruce's hands. He slowly brought it around and lifted the lid to find a wrapped turkey sandwich and orange slices. He started on the sandwich while she took a step back and looked away.

"Where is my son?"

No response

"Where is our gear?"

No answer

"Can you at least tell me if he is ok? We've seen the footage. He needs help"

At that statement, her brow softened and she looked to her left, Bruce's right, down the hallway. She looked back at Bruce, "He is stable. He trains every day. He is getting stronger"

Bruce was elated but kept his face stern. Now they knew which direction Dick was down.

"But he is alright?"

She scowled, "Finish"

Bruce took 1 bite, "Were you born here or taken?"

She didn't reply.

"Tim was worried you were hurt when Jason tried to escape"

Surprise flitted over her eyes and she briefly glanced at Tim who was already watching her softly.

"I am fine"

"Do you have any parents or family?"

"The Court is my family"

"You've been here a long time haven't you?"

Something unknown made itself at home in her gaze and she crossed her arms, "I was here when Gray Son was first brought to us"

"You don't look any older than 13 or 14? Are you saying you were 9 when Dick was last here?" No response, "They killed my son"

She nodded, "It is necessary, all Talons go through the process and the maze. If you make it through the maze, you are worthy. But every Talon increases their regeneration period each time they pass. It helps make us safer when we are out in the field"

Bruce couldn't contain his expression at her words. Did she just say that Dick was murdered down here multiple times? That every time a Talon dies, they come back faster than the previous death? Bruce was so shocked, that a slight ringing began in his ears. Did Dick know and never say anything to spare Bruce? Did he not remember all the times he was murdered down here?

"What is the maze?" It was hard to speak now but he forced the words out.

"It is a trial every Talon must face. Most do not make it"

"But Dick did"

She nodded, "Talon did so in a creative way. His success in the maze will be talked about for eons"

Bruce cocked his head in question, "Why?"

The corners of her fine lips ticked up like she wanted to smile, "Gray Son climbed the maze and managed to get into the rafters and ceiling. We were unable to locate him for 2 days"

Slade snorted, "I remember that," he said fondly.

Bruce glared at him and for a moment, he was just curious how his son had amazed another group of people.

"The kid swung up through the lights, broke the electrical connection in the maze, and got lost in the ceiling rafters. He exited on the far side of the compound in the middle of Cobb's bedroom. The old geezer almost had a heart attack when Dick broke through his bathroom ceiling"

"Heart attack, my ass" Jason muttered.

Jasoin's words shocked the girl from her reminiscing, "I must go" She said sternly. She rebound Bruce's hand and took the tray before he could finish his orange.

"Wait!" Ella turned to Tim, and surprise flitted over her face.

"Please just tell us if he's ok"

She looked back down the same hallway to their right and tried to maintain her neutral expression. She turned back to Tim but refused to meet his eyes, "Please do not fight Grandmaster. Gray Son is no longer your brother. He is beyond you now"

She refused to speak after that and exited the cell but stopped before she was out of view. She turned slightly towards Tim and Jason, "He will be fine"

Tim and Jason had started playing tik tac toe in the dust between them at some point and it wasn't long before Damian started to protest at being excluded. They'd had a monotonous week of little interaction and despite the underlying stress and tension, they were all dreadfully bored. Jason said that he had a game they could all play, and then proceeded to play eye spy in their all-grey cell.

"I spy with my little eye….something grey"

"Todd, I get it. Enough with this"

"Wrong. It was the wall behind you. Your turn replacement"

"Drake, do not humor him"

"I spy somethiiiiiing, grey"

"Drake! Did you not hear me?"

"Sorry Damian, it was the floor"

"Father! I demand you intervene, they are being immature a-"

"Not sure how the kid can put up with them so much" Slade drawled casually from beside Bruce.

He didn't turn to the other man but resisted the urge to snarl, "It's called genuine care, Wilson. I know you wouldn't understand a brotherly connection, much less familial"

Slade whistled, "Low blow, Brucie. Besides, they're not your kids. Except for the smallest brat, I guess"

Bruce frowned, "They are all my children, Wilson. Be quiet"

"3 of them aren't yours by any biological demand and 1 wasn't even adopted. I call that the world's longest sleepover"

Bruce sat up, prepared to try and pound the mercenary's face in protest when noises to their right caught everyone's attention.

Cobb made his way down the hall, his polished footsteps echoing in clean clicks against the floor. Beside him was Lincoln and 2 others. Cobb and Lincoln approached the cell while the other 2 stayed back, almost out of sight.

Cobb had a subtle smile gracing his face as he watched his prisoners, "I've always wondered if you truly knew how connected your boys always were to the Court, Bruce"

Bruce sat straighter at the blunt statement. Almost everything that William Cobb produced was made with the intent to stun and wound, and refused to play into Cobb's mind games. They'd been doing this for days now, Cobb would come and drop little hints of information that would either make his boys despair after Dick's treatment or turn them against each other in frustration. Bruce wasn't sure what Cobb was attempting to reveal or twist this time, but Bruce was fed up with the malicious mind games and treatment. They'd been here long enough and Bruce had started to worry that the Court of Owls had gotten to Baraba or Alfred and kept others from investigating their disappearance.

When Bruce didn't reply, Cobb tutted and turned to Tim with an upturned eyebrow, "Timmothy, would you like to share?"

Bruce turned to Tim in surprise. He assumed this would all be about Dick again. Bruce knew that Cobb was Dick's father's grandfather but he'd never found any other hard evidence of a relation between Dick and the Court of Owls; besides the Circus's constant disappearances over the years.

Tim glared at Cobb and hunched his shoulders slightly.

"Fuck off," Jason said angrily. His eyes began to blaze again, despite his weakened appearance.

"No?" Cobb intoned as if Jason hadn't spoken. He looked back at Bruce, "Timmothy here was almost one of us; a sad mishap that led to greater misfortune on his behalf"

"Are you this desperate to get inside our heads, Cobb? You're going to spin lies about how Tim was supposed to be one of your Talons as well?"

"Oh no, my apologies, I am confusing you. Timmothy's parents, Jack and Janet were truly wonderful people. I worked very closely with them and vice versa. Timmothy was much too young to fully comprehend the value and gravity of his parents' work so they preferred to leave him behind the scenes. As far as I'm aware, they were planning to introduce Tim to our unique work on his 15th birthday"

Cobb sighed dramatically, "Unfortunately, the fire that took Jack and Janet prevented them from introducing their prodigious son. To be orphaned is a tragedy, but to be swept up in a losing fight against crime and petty men is arguably worse, Batman. I will always mourn what could have been, although the opportunity is still here"

Cobb turned to Tim who was quietly seething, "I can call off the bargain with the Al' Ghul's and let you take your palace among the Court when you are old enough to inherit their seat"

Tim stared back in shock and Bruce guessed that Cobb had never actually made this offer to Tim before. Bruce wasn't sure why Tim hadn't told Bruce about this but at this point, he wasn't surprised that his boys were the center of more grand schemes and dark pasts. They'd gone over everything that had happened in detail; except this apparently.

"You could stay with Richard and help him acclimate; we all know what a soft-hearted boy he can be. Imagine how happy he would be to learn that someone in this miserable family returned his extremist loyalty, hmm?"

"You lie!" Damian spat, "The Drakes were good upstanding people and would never partake in your underground filth of an organization"

Cobb frowned slightly, "My dear boy, every member of the Court is a verified and guaranteed upstanding citizen of quality. We only care for Gotham and her future". Beside Damian, Tim was gaping at the younger boy's outburst.

"I looked into the Drakes until there was nothing else to find" Bruce defended, "The Drakes had no involvement with anything like this. They were quality people and would never put their son at risk"

"Ahhhh, but you didn't know about Richard's parents either, did you? My faithful grandson and his beautiful wife volunteered for my experiment, which was the only way to guarantee that Richard survived his later procedure"

Cobb paced in front of Bruce, "Let's face it, Wayne. You had no idea who or what you were fighting. You don't even know what you've been raising this past decade. We are Richard's family in every sense of the word" He gestured to Lincoln, "Lincoln here is his older cousin in fact, twice removed I believe, but the connection is there nonetheless"

Bruce was struggling to focus on everything he was learning. It was so much new information. So much hidden information. Was this being used to sway Dick to obey? More family to protect? How was Cobb presenting this to his oldest son? Dick might not even be in the right mindset to demand evidence.

Bruce picked up on something Cobb had mentioned, "What procedure did you put my son through? What did you do to him?"

Cobb smiled haughtily, "I think you know Bruce. The evolution procedure?"

Something across Bruce's face answered Cobb for him, "Yes, you have come across information linked to this, haven't you? That procedure is part of the reason Richard is so special and unique. Not only is electrum naturally generated by his white blood cells, he is the only one to survive the injections"

"Yout put others through that shit?" Cobb turned to Jason and nodded readily, "Very few finished the injections and even fewer survived"

"What is electrum?" Tim asked, "It can't be healthy or sustainable since you have to re-administer it to your lackeys"

Cobb smiled, "I've heard you were the brains behind most operations, Timmothy. I'm glad to see where your thoughts are drawn to". Tim scowled.

"It's a formula that was only able to be perfected within the last 70 years or so. Before that, it was quite a hit-or-miss situation. Fortunately, my transformation went swimmingly well; others were not so lucky"

"You didn't," Slade said darkly.

Heads turned to look at a seething Deathstroke, but Cobb turned down his nose, "You never utilized your gifts or capacity to their fullest, Wilson. Many would argue you are not worthy of such abilities"

"Does this have to do with the super soldier serum that Slade took?" Tim asked the room.

Cobb's scowl melted away, "Spot on, my boy. You see The Court's higher-ranking members; our Owls, are responsible for instigating the research that the U.S. required to extend and improve a human's life. We cemented the formula but it was only until our resident mercenary came along that we realized that we had been administering it wrong. The serum would have killed Colonel Wilson if not for the fact that he was administered his injections a few minutes too late and this caused the formula to interact with his decomposing red and white blood cells perfectly"

Cobb brushed an invisible piece of lint off his suit shoulder before continuing, "From there, it was quite easy to perfect and practice with until we created our electrum"

"Your own story doesn't add up, asshole" Jason growled, "If you only made electrum within the last 50 to 70 years, why have there been reports of the Court, and metas, and shit since the early 1900s"

Cobb looked at Jason with disdain, "Like I said, boy. The original serum was being administered incorrectly. It should be administered mid-death, not before. Due to this error, many of our oldest brothers and sisters are only about 40% of everyone who partook in the experience"

Damian's eyes widened and he looked to Tim to confirm what he was realizing. The Court was this large and heavily equipped and they could have been multitudes larger. God had heavily intervened for years and the Court had still grown to egregious proportions.

"What was added to the serum, Cobb?" Bruce growled. He was furious and shocked to hear that the Court they were dealing with was a weaker version of what they could've been, but he didn't miss that Cobb only briefly glossed over the subject of improving the super soldier project that Wilson survived. Was Cobb admitting that Dick was just a 21st-century model of Slade Wilson?

Cobb straightened his cuff links as he answered, "Adamantium"

The air was sucked out of Bruce's chest and tossed into hell. Injecting someone with liquid adamantium was impossible. They would die during the injection or shortly after.

"You expect us to believe this crap?" Jason asked, "No one can survive that stuff, it's why it's used for impenetrable metal armor and shit. It's hard enough to get enough for chest plates and shin guards"

Cobb's torso seemed to straighten and inflate with pride, "Try an entire skeleton"

Slade fell deathly still to Bruce's right but he couldn't pull himself away from Cobb's gaze. William Cobb had injected his son's skeleton and immune system with liquid adamantium…. There was too much to comprehend. How was this done? Did he counteract the lethal consequences with a magic user? Were his scientists just that capable? The pain his son must have gone through was unimaginable, to be injected with something 10 times worse than lava. Bruce prayed Dick wasn't conscious for any of this.

He'd failed his boy beyond redemption. Despair and wrath were battling inside his chest over how his 17-year-old son's life had been turned upside down.

"As strong as that kid is, no one would be able to survive that" Slade intoned seriously.

"Ahhh, that's where you're right. You are forgetting that Richard was not born normatively though"

"Ohhhhh, riiiight. That time you drugged a fetus and a mom with toxic chemicals" Jason drawled.

Lincoln stepped forward but Cobb held out a hand, "It's quite alright Lincoln. Let the boy lash out. They are losing everything here, frustration is understandable"

"You don't seem very eager to explain exactly how you accomplished a genetically impossible feat" Slade inquired in a dark tone. The timber of his voice rumbled slightly on certain words like he was resisting a growl.

"Oh, don't mind me. I'm not incredibly savvy in the actual process and procedures. I just oversee my very qualified medical staff. I give goals. I expect perfect execution, nothing more"

Slade's eyebrow perked up and his face expressed how unimpressed he was with the explanation.

"To put it plainly," Cobb said slowly, "Due to Richard's miraculous birth and natural healing proficiencies, the adamantium was not able to kill him completely. He succumbed over, and over, and over, until eventually, the electrum learned to overcompensate and co exist with the foreign entity. It's similar to how many of our seasoned warriors can arise after a few minutes after enough deaths or lethal injuries."

The room was speechless, watching Cobb with shock and horror while the man bragged about his experimental triumphs.

"The amazing thing is that since the adamantium had nowhere to go and couldn't overtake the boy's body; the molten liquid caved and formed to his skeletal structure" Cobb took a deep breath like the air he was breathing was happiness itself, "The boy cannot be killed. Almost nothing can break adamantium and now my Gray Son is made of it"

"Talons can be killed with a snapped neck easily" Damian spat. His knees had curled up to his chest and he looked 10 times smaller than he really was.

"Are you telling me, you can snap adamantium?" Cobb asked politely.

Damian trembled but all he could provide was a hearty glare, "That's what I thought, boy. No matter how confident you are, no one can just snap that metal, even if it is only a couple of inches thick"

"You tortured him" Jason breathed. His eyes were glowing and luminous but his face was slack as if he was seeing his brother again for the first time in 5 years. His eyes narrowed and he bared his teeth in a gruesome bellow, "I'll fucking kill you!" He jerked and pulled to no success.

Cobb watched him with half-lidded eyes, "Are you quite done?"

Jason was seething and breathing heavily but it was obvious they were all still stuck to their 5 inched slack chains and bindings.

"Excellent" Cobb clapped his hands together suddenly, "With all this morose talk of my Grandson, I thought it appropriate to bring him out; to test his progress so far"