Imagine the court of owls were more hands on with Dick Graysons training.
Maybe they noticed he was a prodigy from a young age. He picked up knife throwing, acrobatics, languages. They decide his time is wasted at Haley’s.
So they decide that he must spend a few months every year training directly with the court. Every time the circus starts it’s American leg of the tour they drop him off in Gotham.
It’s starts when he is 5. He trains with his great-grandfather, William Cobb and the other talons.
Cobb tells himself not to get attached. He knows his descendants are just hostages to keep him in loyal to the court. They are hostages or weapons. He stopped thinking of them as people because it hurt less. But now he has this energetic 5 year old. One that looks so much like the son the court took from him.
It’s not long before a plan to take out the court starts.
Dick is a natural performer. Loyal, but not mindless. Making progress in his training but not so much that court considers sending him on a mission yet. He acts intelligent, but not arrogant. He needs them to appreciate his mind so won’t consider turning him into a mindless killing machine. It’s a fine balance. He hates the days they send to the lab with the scientist. His grandfather (as he calls Cobb) racks his hands through his hair and sings him a lullaby until he falls asleep.
It’s not hard for Cobb to convince the other talons. Something about seeing someone so young going through what they have been through overrides their self preservation.
When Dick’s parent fall, the court take the opportunity to make his training full time.
A deal with league of assassins leaves the court with a new formula for making talons.
Dick dies at age 9. The new talon formula, with a pinch of pit water, leaves him just enough alive to age with all the other benefits.
For any talons not already part of the plan, that was the day their loyalty died.
At age 10 Dick was taken to see the Grandmaster to be given his first mission, to kill the Batman.
The Grandmaster was so excited to see Dick’s first kill, Dick wouldn’t disappoint.
He slit the Grandmasters throat.
Cobb took out the rest of the masters in the chamber. Their screams was the cue the rest of the talons were waiting for.
Cobb took Dick into his arms, resting his head on his shoulders, and promised he would never have to kill again.
Cobb showed up in the batcave an hour later with a sleeping 10 year old.
Some talons took deals with the Justice League. Therapy, new identities, a chance at a new life. Some defected to the league of assassins. All they have known was killing. If they happen to take all the assignments to kill human trafficking and other human scum no one commented.
Cobb and some others knew their fight wasn’t over. Knew their little Owlet would never be safe as long as other branches of the court existed.
That’s how a 10 year old, undead, Dick Grayson came to live at the manor. Getting visited by undead assassins on a regular basis.
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