"Damian? Damian, please wake up..." Someone murmured next to him, and Damian struggled to force his eyelids open. Everything hurt, and the pain in his body made it difficult for his limbs to cooperate. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to allow himself a few more minutes of sleep... "Damian, no! You have to wake up!"

That voice... He could recognize that voice from anywhere. "Grayson?" His eyes finally obeyed his command, and he blearily blinked up at the hazy figure beside him. "What happened?"

"You were poisoned," Grayson told him gently, but there was something off about his tone. "The Resistance saved us before the League could capture us. We're at the safe house right now. Do you remember where that is?"

Immediately, the hair on the back of Damian's neck stood on end. There was something wrong about the way Grayson worded that, something that reminded Damian of a type of interrogation tactic. "The Resistance has many safe houses, Grayson..." he said slowly, propping himself on his elbows. "I cannot name all of them at once."

"I have to make sure the poison hasn't effected your memory," Grayson gave him a small smile, but again there was something off about it. "What safe house were we staying at before? You have to at least remember that."

"...We stayed in the site under Gotham Bridge," he finally said, eyeing Grayson suspiciously. "Is that where we are now?"

"We had to relocate. West didn't want us staying in one place for too long, just in case the Owls started snooping around," Grayson said smoothly. "I'm glad you remember, Damian. That should help us identify all of your symptoms and eliminate them." He stood, giving him another half smile. "Rest up and I'll fill you in on the rest later, alright?"

"...You're not Grayson." Damian sat up, glaring at the Grayson look alike. "My Grayson would have continued needlessly fussing over me for another half hour, would have used a childish nickname at least twice, wouldn't have ever called West by his last name..." he scowled. "And he would have known that there is no safe house under Gotham Bridge."

The friendly smile that 'Grayson' wore twisted into a smirk. "Well well well, looks like you inherited your father's famous detective skills, huh? Bravo!" He clapped at him mockingly, icy blue eyes gleaming in the dim light of the dark room that Damian had been brought to. "You shouldn't have such an attitude towards the man who saved your life. If it wasn't for me, you would be buried under a pile of rubble back at one of our bases."

"That was your mistake, thinking that saving me would make me give away any information on the Resistance," Damian spat.

"Disappointing. I thought you of all people might me interested in joining us, Damian." He shrugged. "But I guess ex assassins aren't as reliable as I was led to believe."

"I have changed," Damian said harshly, shakily pushing himself up to unsteady legs. "My father has shown me the error of my ways, he has taught me how much value is in every life. And my Grayson taught me much as well." He averted his eyes. "I thought he was wrong to influence me into goofing off and playing unnecessary games, but I now see the value in that as well. Unlike you, I know that there is more to life than just killing people who get in your way."

'Grayson' chuckled, shaking his head as though he had just heard the stupidest joke in the world. "How inspirational, Damian. Your Grayson must have done a number on you to twist your beliefs like that." Damian began to protest, but Grayson continued before he could. "I can't say that I blame you; I was once like your adoptive brother. I once thought there was more to this life than darkness, that cheering people up with jokes and games was my destiny... but I was wrong. There is no room for fun in a world ran by selfish humans. Even the people you think you trust will eventually turn against you. I have seen it, my fellow Owls have seen it..." he smirked. "You saw it too, when Renegade betrayed you during our battle."

"A man who works for Deathstroke is not someone to be trusted," Damian said firmly. "Grayson and I simply made an error in judgement."

"Ah... But Grayson has betrayed you as well, hasn't he?" 'Grayson' tilted his head in a falsely childish way. "Did you know that he too has worked for Deathstroke?" Damian's eyes widened, and that made Grayson's smirk grow. "You didn't, did you? I suppose you didn't know that he became his apprentice willingly, did you? Or that he killed innocent people while he was his underling?"

"...You're lying." Damian shook his head, angered by the way this Grayson was trying to manipulate him. Well it wasn't going to work, not on him. "Grayson would never kill anyone, not even a villain. And he would never willingly associate himself with the likes of Deathstroke. If he ever worked for him, it was not by choice."

"You really don't know him as well as you thought, do you? That must hurt, knowing that the man you think of as your second father has been keeping such secrets from you..." He clicked his tongue. "At least I'm honest."

Damian's anger flared. "If you are as honest as you claim, then why don't you tell me why you betrayed the Justice System by becoming a Talon?!"

Grayson stared at him for a moment, smirk fading away. "...I didn't join them willingly," he said, tone soft. "None of us did. The Court of Owls offers money and supplies to any family that gives up their children to the Court. I never thought I would be given away, my parents always treated me like they loved me more than anything in the world... But I was wrong. They gave me away to keep the Circus alive.

"At first, I was sad. I spent all of the hours of training just crying as I was forced to learn how to wield a sword and shoot a gun. I thought it was my fault that my parents had abandoned me. I became the worst trainee in the entire Court, and eventually the Owls decided that I wasn't fit for training just yet. So... they sent me back to the Circus until I was ready.

"Before I made it back home, I was ecstatic to see my family again. I thought that maybe once they saw me again, they would change their minds about getting rid of me, and they would tell the Court that they wanted me back..." He paused. "Again, I was wrong. When I returned, I finally realized that I meant nothing to the people I called my family; they already had a new child in the act, my little brother named 'Robin,'" he sneered. "They didn't even notice that I had returned. All they did was coo over their new son, the one that had stolen what was once my nickname...

"After I saw what had happened, I left the Circus without a word, and I hunted down the Court of Owls and demanded that they continued training me. They were skeptical at first, but they were surprised when I suddenly developed the determination I needed to become one of the best trainees in my class." He smirked. "And later, the greatest Talon in all of history. I guess that when I realized that this world was nothing more than a bunch of selfish people pitted against each other in battle, my morality didn't matter to me anymore. There's no good or bad, there is only survival, and I'm more than capable of surviving now that I'm here."

"So instead of trying to change the selfish nature of this world, you gave into it?!" Damian snapped, mostly unaffected by his sob story. "You are no better than your parents if you continue on this path."

"I know. Why would I try to change this world if my actions will not have a result? I would simply be eliminated by those who do not want this system to change. Why try when I know that there is no chance of success?"

Damian frowned at this, and tried to take a different approach. "My Grayson has told me stories of his parents, and I cannot imagine there was ever a moment when they would do something so ghastly to their own child. There must have been a misunderstanding."

There was a chuckle. "My counterpart's parents were killed right in front of him. When someone dies, we tend to look at their good qualities and totally disregard the bad. Your Grayson only believes his parents were saints because he was so traumatized by their deaths that he could only remember the good times he had spent with him. Because trust me, my parents were not all good."

Damian found that he was running out of things to argue against; Grayson did have a point. "This world has to have good people in it, it cannot only have those who are selfish..." He said, mostly to himself than Grayson. This was all so confusing, having to convince another version of his annoying brother that the world that he lived in wasn't all bad, even though Damian had only seen what Grayson was now describing.

"Hard, isn't it? Trying to find good qualities that don't exist." He snorted. "Even you aliens from the alternate dimension are selfish; you're not here to help us, you only want to return to your own little world. Well newsflash, humans are naturally selfish. And while your world might be better than ours now, it won't be long before yours falls into a similar state of chaos. That's what humanity does, it tears apart the world until there's nothing left." He suddenly let out a yawn, stretching his arms over his head. "As fun as this little lesson was, I'm tired. It was nice talking to you, Robin." He gave him a brief smirk before turning around, leaving the dark room without so much as a glance in his direction. When the door opened, Damian was briefly able to see the dark red walls of his room, and the toilet and sink in the corner, but when the door closed he was brought back into eery darkness.

And strangely... the first thought that Damian had was how much he missed his Grayson.