#william cobb

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So, until the 70s, it wasn’t exactly uncommon for gypsy/Romani/traveller families to just… give their kids to their siblings. Until the 30s, it might even have been considered common. I personally know of four people this applies to.

Basically, what would happen is you’d often have a family with a lot of children. Maybe they couldn’t afford them, maybe one of the parents died, maybe they just had a lot of children. Then you’d have their sibling: maybe they had less children, maybe they had none. But, either way, it was not uncommon for a child or two to just be given to the kid’s aunt and uncle to be adopted and raised.

Since we often travel together as an extended family, the child often still grows up with their biological family literally next door. Some call both their biological parents and their adopted parents ‘mum’ and ‘dad’, and others might just call one set ‘mum’/‘dad’, whilst the others are ‘aunt’/‘uncle’. Some may keep their original surname, whilst others take their adopted parents’ names.

So, anyway, the AU comes in with the Court of Owls and Talon. They’re out here trying to recruit Dick again as the Gray Son, but what if John Grayson was adopted like this.

Talon: you are my great grandchild! You were bred to be the Gray Son!

Dick: wait hold on a minute… you said ‘bred’ – does that ‘grandchild’ status only count biologically?

Talon: you are the last of my blood

Dick: ah, hate to break it to ya, but I’m not actually.

Talon: ?

Dick: yeah, turns out whatever the Court did to my Grandad Grayson - your son - at Haley’s made him infertile, so he and my Nanny Grayson couldn’t have children. But my Nanny Grayson’s sister and brother-in-law, my Aunt Doris and uncle Billy, had like twelve children, so they just gave a baby - my dad, John - to my Nanny and Grandad.

Talon: what the -

Dick: yeah so my dad was obviously raised a Grayson and my grandparents are my grandparents, ya know, but, biologically, he was born a Matthews, and his mum was a Stevens.

Talon:

Dick: No Grayson blood here, I’m afraid.

Talon: I -

They don't even have to particularly like Dick but no way they are letting *that* man be his favourite, Dicks their Grandchild!

Idk just two old kinda immortal old men fighting over who is the superior Grandfather...

Obviously it's Alfred though

Wait pls im imagining a scenario where the court has kidnapped Dick from Bruce, maybe he’s like 10. And he’s been training with Cobb daily for over two months now, and he’s so traumatized after being dumped in the Labyrinth for a week at the very beginning. They’ve really done their best to break him and turn him into a good little Talon.

And Cobb has been sent as a representative for the Court at some villain meeting or whatever. Something akin to the Light from yj. And Cobb has decided to bring Dick with him to show him how these things go.

But as soon as they enter this big meeting room with all these other bad guys, Dick just zeroes in on Ra’s al Ghul sitting with Ubu standing guard behind him. And as bad as Ra’s is, he’s never hurt Dick, not like how Cobb has. And he’s always doted on Dick whenever Talia brought him around Nanda Parbat.

So Dick sees his only opportunity to escape and he takes the risk.

“Grandpa!” he cries, darting away from Cobb before he can grab him, and he crashes into Ra’s, who has waved Ubu off from intercepting Dick. “Grandpa, help!”

“Gray Son!” Cobb barks, but Ra’s is glaring at him now as he holds Dick close. “Get back here!”

“You would dare to order my grandson around?” Ra’s questions, and he’s gentle as he takes off the Talon goggles around Dick’s head.

“Your grandson?” Cobb scoffs. “He’s my grandson!”

“Well he clearly likes me better.”

Ra’s is standing now, but Dick clings to him, not wanting him to step any closer to Cobb.

“Grandpa, grandpa, I wanna go home,” he tries to interrupt, but Ra’s just pats his head.

“Your father has been worried sick about you, grandson, as has your mother,” Ra’s says, clicking his tongue. “Let your grandfather put the man who kidnapped you in his place, yes?”

Ra’s doesn’t even have to lift a finger before Ubu starts fighting Cobb for him. Dick watched, transfixed, held safely in Ra’s arms.

“I think this meeting should be postponed,” Ra’s says when Ubu is done pummeling Cobb into the ground. He starts leading Dick out the door, keeping him held close.

Ra’s brings him straight back to Gotham, right back to the manor. And after a long time of hugging Bruce and Bruce holding him tight and coddling him and asking him if he’s alright, Dick races to hug Alfred too.

“I’m glad grandpa Ra’s brought me home,” Dick whispers to Alfred, “but you’re my favorite.”

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.

Been re-reading some of the N52 comics (specifically the Batman Vol 1 and 2 TPs and the Night of the Owls collection), and I was reminded that the fear of replacement is such a large recurring theme for the characters more oftenly associated with Batman. Whether it be the characters themselves feeling that fear of replacement or others feeling that fear in relation to the characters, it's reappears so frequently that it's hard not to begin seeing it in everything.

Dick: *sighs*

Dick: Well, I was hoping to tell you all under better circumstances.

Dick: But I guess there’s no sense in hiding the truth any longer. Stephanie is right, someone here is related to an Owl, and it’s me. My great grandfather, William Cobb, operated as a Talon within the Court of Owls.

Everyone gasps and begins talking over each other, demanding more information from Dick about this reveal.