Archive of Our Own

Talia Al Ghul was in Gotham for a mission which had finished early. She was wandering the streets when she saw a poster for a group called The Flying Graysons. They were part of an international traveling circus that was currently in the city. Talia wandered her way to the location stated on the poster. She bought a ticket to the carnival and paid extra for her ticket to that evening's show. She walked around the carnival for a while before the show, nothing really piqued her interest. When the time for the show came she entered the big top without hesitation and found a seat near the front of the crowd, so she could see the show well. For the most part the show was fairly average, but when the Graysons began their acrobatic work she found herself somewhat in awe. She gasped with the rest of the audience when the ropes of the trapeze snapped while the 2 adult Graysons were in the air. Talia navigated her way through the chaos the audience had erupted into. She found her way to the center of the ring, where the youngest Grayson was kneeling next to his parents, looking like he was in shock. Talia went over to him, setting her hand on the boy's shoulder and kneeling down next to him. The boy turned toward her and as he did Talia found herself with a 9 year old boy hugging her and crying on her shoulder. She was not used to this kind of close physical contact, but she tried her best to comfort the boy until the police arrived.

While comforting the child she had found herself getting attached to him. When she learned he had ended up in a juvenile detention center while they found him a suitable foster home, she decided she would find a way to adopt him and take him back to her father. She would tell him that she had seen the potential for an incredible assassin in him, though in truth she was just seeing the opportunity to have a son. She jumped through a few hoops and paid a few bribes, but within 2 days of the boy being orphaned she had gained custody of him. 

It was another few days before she returned with Richard to Nanda Parbat to face her father. When she did she was surprised by how easily he approved of the boy. She was even more surprised when he offered to train Richard himself once the boy had been trained in basics. Richard took to the training quickly. Within the month he had become capable enough that Ra’s took over his training. Talia would have trained him longer but her pregnancy was progressing and she wasn’t going to be able to wield a sword well for much longer. Instead, Talia took the time to watch the training sessions often and they reminded her how brutal a teacher Ra’s was. He expected his students to learn fast and if they didn’t he had no issues with striking a fatal blow and then healing his student in a Lazarus Pit after their training was over. It was how she had been taught and it was how Richard was being taught too. She was impressed to see Richard did much better with the training than many of Ra’s previous students. Unlike Talia herself, Richard only spent a month being killed every day. After the first month training with Ra’s Richard started becoming more capable of defending herself. He had at least one day every week where he survived his training session. Gradually the number of days he survived increased until only 1 year after he had started training he hadn’t died in over 1 month. Talia had given birth to her son, Damian, 2 months before and she and Richard, both, loved their new little family member. 

Talia didn’t train Richard in the physical aspects of his training, but she was perfectly happy to help him with the mental aspects. One problem that came up with the way Ra’s trained his students was that some of them would fall into pit rage. To prevent the pit rage from completely taking over it was important that they meditate regularly. This was a part of Richard’s training that Talia was happy to take care of. She also worked on teaching him a variety of languages. Richard was already conversational in an impressive number of languages, but Talia wanted him to have the languages he already knew mastered. She also intended for him to learn multiple languages he didn’t already know the basics of. Talia taught him history, math, science, art, and many other subjects. Once he had learned as much as she could teach she started bringing in teachers for specific subjects. By that time the first 7 months of his training had already passed.

Over the next 2 years Talia, Ra’s, and any specialists or instructors they brought in taught Richard everything they could. Richard proved himself to be an incredible actor and performer. He also was very good at lying. In his (minimal) free time Richard spent time with his little brother, Damian. Talia knew she wasn’t good at emotional connection, but she could see that Richard was providing for Damian what she could not. 

By the time Richard was 13 years old (Damian was 3) he was the best assassin in the League. He had been inducted into the Elite Guard and was completing missions all over the world. He had proven himself incredibly capable and was functioning as his younger brother’s guard (and teacher) when he was in Nanda Parbat. This was Richard’s status quo until he was 18 years old.

Richard Grayson Al Ghul was 18 when Deathstroke brought the League of Assassins to its knees. Talia had taken Richard and his younger brother, who was only 8, to Gotham City, where Damian’s father lived. Talia had explained to him previously that Damian’s father was Bruce Wayne aka Batman. Richard hadn’t ever returned to Gotham. It was the place his parents had died and he was dragged away from the people he considered his family, only to be thrown into a juvenile detention center, where he had been at least 3 years younger than the next youngest boy and had been treated horribly for his strong accent and tan skin. Basically, Gotham had never done anything good for him and he had no desire to ever go back, but it was where Damian’s father was. It was supposed to be safe for him, so Richard would go with him. Richard would protect his little brother, no matter what.

Bruce had 2 other sons. Jason Todd-Wayne and Tim Drake-Wayne. Jason had been a hero/vigilante named Argonaut, but had died at the hands of the Joker. Talia had taken Jason’s body from his grave and used a Lazarus Pit to bring him back. It was Jason’s death that resulted in Tim being adopted by Bruce. Tim had seen Bruce start to spiral because of Jason’s death, so he had approached Batman and convinced him to let Tim become a hero. Tim didn’t go by Argonaut, instead he used the name Peregrine. When Jason had returned he was struggling with pit rage, and on multiple occasions attempted to kill Tim. Jason also became a crime lord and attempted to make Batman kill the Joker. By the time Damian and Dick were living in the Manor Jason was coming around fairly often and was no longer killing people, even as the Red Hood, which was the identity he used as a crime lord.

It was clear within a week of living with Bruce that he neither liked or trusted Richard. Richard was perfectly fine with that, so long as Bruce didn’t make him leave Damian. Damian had decided that he needed to prove himself to be better than Tim and Jason and had, apparently, decided the best way to do that was through murder. Dick had to sit down and explain to him (with the rest of Damian’s family present) that Tim and Jason were related to him the same way Richard was and Damian would not kill Richard, so he shouldn’t kill Tim or Jason. He also made sure he understood that just because Tim and Jason were his older siblings didn’t mean they would inherit the mantle of Batman over him. Richard explained that if either of them became Batman it was because they were just holding the mantle until Damian was old enough to be able to become Batman. Damian had protested that he was old enough now, but Richard had made him realize that if he wasn’t large enough he would be able to pull off being Batman convincingly. At that point Damian had started pouting and questioned why Richard couldn’t become Batman instead of “one of the pretenders”. Richard had only laughed and said “Because I am not your father’s son.” The conversation had ended after that and Damian no longer made attempts to kill his brothers.

Over the next few months Richard stood back and watched as Batman trained Damian. At first he had tried to include Richard, but once Richard had made it clear he would not be participating Batman had given in. The only time Richard participated in any training was when they were sparring, though he struggled not to strike killing blows, as he had been taught. Richard listened to Batman teach Damian that killing was wrong, and listened as Damian believed his father. When Batman decided Damian was safe to let out of the house as a vigilante it was time to decide on a name and costume. Damian was fully prepared with the name Shrike, but Dick stopped him before he could suggest it.

“You should use the name Robin.”

Damian knew what the name Robin meant to Richard. Richard had told him stories of his first mother, who had taught him to fly and called him Robin. So when Richard offered the name to him Damian did not hesitate to take it.

Richard managed to convince Batman to allow him to join Robin on patrols. Batman tried to fight him on it, but after Richard promised he wouldn’t kill criminals (in his mind he added “except as a last resort”) Batman acquiesced and Richard began shadowing Robin on patrol, only interfering in fights when his little brother needed his help. Richard knew Batman still had no trust in him, but he understood why. Richard had spent the past 10 years being indoctrinated that killing for money was acceptable and Batman was completely against killing as a whole. Batman could deal with Damian, who he believed could be taught that killing was wrong, but he realized that Richard was an adult and could not be as easily re-trained. Richard also suspected that Batman could sense Richard’s dislike for the man. Since Richard had been in Gotham he had been investigating his parents’ death. It didn’t take long for him to conclude that he had been correct in his belief that they had been murdered. It also didn’t take him long to realize that Batman had left the case unsolved for the past 10 years. And while Richard was a very good actor, he had no desire to hide his distaste for the open case, which could have been solved easily if Batman had bothered to put in the effort. Richard didn’t confront Batman about it, but he made sure the man was perfectly aware of what casefiles Richard had hacked into on the batcomputer. Richard also made sure Batman was aware that he had solved the case within a week of first opening the file.

Jason and Tim seemed like they were okay with Richard. They appreciated that he kept Damian from continuing his murder attempts, but still seemed cautious of the full-grown assassin living in their home. After a while, though, both started coming to him to ask for help with various things. Jason convinced Richard to join him in intimidating a few gang leaders who were making an attempt to take Red Hood’s place (he also asked Richard to talk about classic literature and theatre, which Richard happily discussed, even dramatically reading Shakespeare plays with Jason for fun, eventually). Tim asked for his perspective on the cold cases he solved in his freetime. After a little over a year of staying at the Manor Richard felt like Jason and Tim, at least, had accepted his presence. Hell, even Alfred would sometimes seek out his company. The only hold out seemed to be Bruce and, honestly, that was mostly because of (Bruce’s) one sided mistrust and mutual dislike.

It wasn’t until over two years that this dynamic finally changed. The change was precipitated by all 3 of Bruce’s sons being kidnapped. Bruce was frantic when he realized none of his children had returned from patrol and Richard was blaming himself for not being with Damian at the time, instead electing to coordinate from the Cave that night, trusting his little brother to be safe on patrol. At first Bruce tried to keep Richard from helping with finding the boys, but after about an hour of keeping the man from doing anything he realized that Richard could actually be useful to help find the boys. After that the search went much faster. When they had found the young vigilantes Bruce (Batman now) tried to prevent Richard from helping with rescuing them. Richard had not taken kindly to this and made it clear to Batman that if Richard didn’t come it wasn’t likely that Batman would be able to take on all of the kidnappers on his own. Batman agreed to allow Richard to come along, on the condition that he didn’t kill anyone. Richard just rolled his eyes at Batman and got in the Batmobile.

When Richard and Batman had gone to retrieve Jason, Tim, and Damian they hadn’t actually known who had kidnapped the boys. When they arrived at the location the boys were being held, they realized how seriously they had underestimated the situation. The boys had been kidnapped by the Court of Owls. They made a plan and went in to attack. The plan was successful at first. They took down quite a few Talons, but they were eventually overwhelmed. They faced the Court and Richard understood that the reason they had been captured by the Court was that they wanted Richard to become a Talon. The Gray Son of Gotham was what they called him. Richard knew that wasn’t what he was. That wasn’t who he was. It hadn’t been him since Talia al Ghul had taken in an orphan and trained him to become the greatest member of the League of Assassins. It hadn’t been him since Talia had told him he had a little brother and Richard had decided that he would do anything to protect him. (It hadn’t been him since he had decided that Damian’s brothers belonged to him too.) But when the Court made the offer Richard realized that they knew exactly where his weakness was. When the Court said they would release his little brother (s) Richard knew that there was no way he wouldn’t agree to it. When they told him his brother (s) could live a happy life with his father Richard knew he would do anything to make that happen. Richard had also been completely loyal to those he chose and the ones he had chosen were Damian, Jason, and Tim. And he would protect them. Even if it meant he had to become a Talon to do so. Richard looked to Batman for a moment before he shared his decision. He knew the man saw what he was going to do. He saw the man nod his approval. His agreement that he would take up protecting Damian, Jason, and Tim once Richard was no longer able to. He saw that Batman no longer distrusted him. He found his own dislike for Batman abating somewhat. And then he looked to his brothers and all he could do was smile at them (he didn’t want to see that they were telling him not to do this. He didn’t care if they would hate him for the rest of their lives. He could do this to protect them, if nothing else). And then he turned to the Court and agreed to become their Talon.