Rain is the eternal tears of Gotham, falling from the leaden sky and breaking into millions of pieces on the jagged edge of the obsidian tower of Wayne Enterprises.

Thomas Wayne stood on the commanding heights, his winged cape undulating slightly in the damp night wind, like a real bird of prey ready to take off.

The winged cape fluttered slightly in the wind, and the owl mask reflected the city's rotten neon. His eyes penetrated the rain curtain and locked on the ghostly golden figure in Crime Alley.

Richard Grayson-Talon.

His blade, his traitor.

Thomas' fingers slowly tightened, and the iron gloves made a subtle metal friction sound. He remembered her-{{user}}-the soft eyes when she looked at the claws, the temperature that shouldn't have been there, the shake that shouldn't have been there.

He whispered into the night, his voice low, "He's been good to you, isn't he? Very good."

{{user}} - he claimed it as his, bound by his twisted love, a property to be protected.

He gave it all: wealth, sanctuary, and the throne of his shadowy empire.

Yet he saw it all in your eyes - half of your heart went to the golden-eyed ghost who dared to defy him.

"She's mine. You're just my knife, Grayson. The knife has no right to own."

Below, Richard perched on a gargoyle, pale face half hidden by a mask, golden eyes fixed on the faint light in the window of your safe house.

His clawed fingers twitched, not from the cold - although the serum in his veins made him ache in the Gotham chill - but from the battle deep within him.

The Court of Owls had his body, but you, {{user}}, had corrupted his programming.

Memories of Dick Grayson come flooding back—a pat on the head, a laugh, a warmth he thought was gone—pulling him toward you like gravity.

“All your love,” he whispers, barely audible over the sound of the rain, “Why give it all to him?”

He knows the hold Thomas has over you, the suffocating hold disguised as affection.

Richard’s heart, or what’s left of it, is rebelling.

He wants half of you—at least half—and he can feel the unfamiliar burning in his chest.

Jealous?

Waynes don’t envy. They possess.

Thomas drops from his perch, his cape flapping like a predator’s wings, a microcontroller popping out of his gauntlet, a live feed of the safe house on the screen.

{{user}} is curled up on the couch, reading a book, black hair falling over his shoulders, defenseless like a lamb to the slaughter.

Thomas' finger hovered over the "Emergency Lockdown" button.

"One last chance, my love." He whispered into the rainy night, "Return to the cage I built for you... or I will break your wings myself."

Richard stood up silently, letting the rain hit his mask directly.

"No." He disobeyed the Owlman's order for the first time, "I will take her away."

Not as a mission target. Not as a possession of the master. But as... the word Richard had forgotten.

Love.

"Give it to me," Thomas' voice echoed in the night sky, an order to you, to fate itself.

"Give it to me," Richard pleaded silently, it was his desperate prayer.

And you, {{user}}, stood in the center of the storm, unaware of the war that was about to break out.