I, V, Gotham Legend

"How do you know my figure?" Dick couldn't help asking.

He remembered that custom-made clothes required measurements.

Valerie was too lazy to help Batman make up lies, so she looked at Batman and signaled with her chin that he should say something.

Batman was too lazy to make up a story, he just told Dick: "You put it on first."

"...Hmm." Dick felt that this boss was a bit overbearing, but since he said so, he couldn't ask any more questions. He could only pick up his clothes and look around blankly.

"Here," Valerie handed Dick a key card. "Just find a box to change into. No rush."

"Yeah." Dick nodded, he put the drink on the coffee table between them, then took the key card and uniform and left the room.

Valerie watched Dick leave and scratched her head in thought: "What a shameful day... By the way, do you think this guy's butt is a little bit raised?"

"V." Batman did not continue the topic, "How much do you know about the Court of Owls?"

NO57. It was moist at first.

"A bunch of rats who thought they had everything under control, and yet they were defeated by me... by Sivatu." Valerie answered confusedly at first, then realized something, "You encountered it too? That claw?"

Valerie had just seen the last Claw not long ago. She beat the guy up and tried to find the Claw's lair.

"Not only did I meet him." Batman shook his head, ignoring the information that Valerie almost let slip, "I took off his mask, but saw an unexpected face."

Batman pointed his thumb in the direction Dick left, "Just like him."

"Him?" Valerie looked behind the door in disbelief. Dick had already walked away.

"Do you know something?" Batman put down his hand and asked seriously.

"..." Valerie did have some guesses, but she first showed a serious expression and explored the original question, "Who is that child?"

Because Valerie didn't take it seriously at first, she never used the box-opening method on Dick. Now that Dick is gone, she has to ask Batman directly.

"He is my adopted son, the orphan of the Grayson family." Batman sighed.

"Grayson? I think I've heard of him." Valerie remembered that she had discussed this famous acrobatic family with Helena when she was at the Met.

"Half a month ago, the Grayson family came to Gotham to perform, but they were ambushed by the gang. Now only Dick is left alive." Batman briefly summarized what happened.

The Grayson family tragedy was reported in the newspapers, but Valerie had no interest in the circus at the time and simply glanced over such news.

"So you adopted him?" Valerie probably understood. "It's really unlike you to take the initiative to raise a child... Did you associate it with yourself?"

"..." Batman did not answer, "Dick's family was from Gotham a long time ago, but his grandfather left Gotham and went out to work hard."

Dick's father grew up in Gotham, so he regarded Gotham as his hometown, which is why he must come back to perform after he became successful. But he didn't expect that this would lead to tragedy.

"I understand now what you said. It seems everything makes sense." Valerie stroked her chin and recalled the details of the Court of Owls in her mind.

At this moment, the door behind him was opened again, and Dick, wearing a uniform, returned to the room.

"This outfit is pretty cool. Is it based on the costumes of acrobats?" Dick put on his hood and looked at the details on his clothes. "To be honest, it makes me feel safe, just like when I was still in the troupe."

From a distance, it looks like a black bodysuit with an orange-red vest-shaped armor on it. The hood on the head is connected to the cloak behind. The gloves and boots are both conspicuous yellow. Apart from that, the most chivalrous thing is the black eye mask on the face.

"I heard from your Uncle Bat that you were born into a family of jugglers." Valerie carefully examined Dick's look. "How is it? Do you feel like you can do three or four backflips in this outfit?"

"If it's in the subversion state, I can flip out six in a row." Dick said proudly, "But it's more troublesome to wear pants... I just don't feel used to it."

"…You don't wear pants when you perform?"

"It's the shorts..." Dick was afraid that it would affect his image in women's minds.

Batman finally spoke: "You should get used to it. This is not an ordinary costume material. It can protect you from bullets and electric shocks. It can ensure your safety as much as possible during the operation."

"Okay." Dick nodded.

"Okay, this...classmate? You should be a classmate. You look like you are still in school age." Valerie stood up and walked to Dick. "Your Uncle Bat told me about some troubles you encountered. Can I check it out?"

"Trouble..." Dick was a little touched. He felt that Batman must have come all the way to find the famous V not just for a set of clothes.

"As long as you can find out the truth about the murder of my parents, I will agree to do anything you want." Dick nodded vigorously.

"Parents? That's indeed a problem, but the trouble you're facing may be going back many generations." Valerie walked to Dick, suddenly stretched out her hand and held Dick's cheek.

"Huh?" Dick was confused by Valerie's sudden action.

"You can't see it this way... I remember it was all on the inside." Valerie loosened her grip on Dick's hand thoughtfully, "It might hurt a little, just bear with it."

"what?"

Dick was still confused, but Valerie had already thrown a punch, and her fist hit Dick's right cheek like striking a bell.

Dick didn't see what happened at all. He just saw a flash before his eyes, and his face was hit hard, causing severe pain. The whole world was spinning, and he lost the sense of reality under his feet.

Dick flew half a circle in the sky before falling to the ground. His body trembled twice, and then he spat out a tooth with blood.

"My power control is pretty good, right?" Valerie squatted in front of Dick and handed him a pill. "Take the pill and you'll have a new tooth."

Dick raised his head and looked at Valerie with an incredible and confused look. He didn't know why she suddenly took action.

"Don't be so angry, your tooth was not normal to begin with." Valerie comforted her. At this time, Batman also walked to their side, bent down and picked up Dick's broken tooth.

"This symbol..." Batman turned over the broken piece of tooth and looked at the pattern in surprise.

"Do you know how the Court of Owls got to me? I don't think I told you." Valerie forced the pill into Dick's mouth and stood up. "Because they kidnapped a good friend of mine."

Batman looked at Valerie, waiting for her next words.

"It all started when he was doing a physical examination on the children in an orphanage under his command, and he happened to find several children with such tattoos on their teeth." Valerie pointed to the cross section of the teeth. "He was too concerned about it, so he simply investigated it, and found the footprints of the owl."

The Court of Owls would search the entire city for gifted children, artificially turn them into orphans, then adopt these children and train them to become the talons of owls.

"This tooth tattoo is like a backup mark for the claws," Valerie explained.

"I understand." Batman let out a sigh of relief. He basically figured out the whole thing.

Dick's grandfather may have discovered that Dick was marked, but he did not dare to confront the Court of Owls, so he resolutely left Gotham with his family.

But perhaps out of Gotham people's instinctive fear of the court, he kept this secret so well that even his son, Dick's father, didn't know about it.

NO58. It’s better to be busy

The Court of Owls always hid in the shadows, and even until its demise, not many people had actually seen it. Since Dick's grandfather knew about it, he obviously had contact with this organization.

Batman thought of the claw he had fought with before. Although he looked a little older and more mature, the face was obviously very similar to Dick.

"Was one of Dick's ancestors chosen to be the Claw?" Batman did not speak in a low voice like the others did regarding the legend, but stated his reasoning openly as if he was chatting about the weather.

After all, it’s been several months since the seventh day of the Court of Owls.

"What? What are you talking about?" Dick couldn't help himself. He stood between the two of them. "Are you saying that some evil forces have been doing something to my family? Is my parents' death also due to them?"

"..." Valerie thought for a moment, "If it was half a month ago, then it might not be the case. That organization has been destroyed for a long time."

Dick's involvement with the Court of Owls and the tragic death of his parents are two completely different things.

"So, we shouldn't have come to this city in the first place?" Dick murmured in pain.

Having been with his father since he was a child, he has always listened to his father's memories of the city of Gotham. It is said that when his father was young, the order of Gotham had not yet been swallowed up by the economic crisis, and everything was beautiful at that time.

Perhaps it was because he had been exposed to this city since he was a child, or perhaps it was because he had been touring with the circus for a long time and had no fixed home, but Dick was full of fantasies and a sense of belonging to this city.

However, from the time he came to this city until now, the abyss of Gotham has swallowed up every fantasy of Dick, just like gorgeous glass falling to the ground, leaving only real residues.

"..." Batman looked at Dick's no longer optimistic face, and suddenly raised his head and stared straight at Valerie.

"......?" Valerie was still looking at Dick worriedly, not knowing how to comfort him, but suddenly she felt a pair of eyes staring at her. She couldn't help but raise her head and looked at Batman in surprise, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Batman did not look away. He stared at Valerie's delicate face and recalled the earliest photo of V he had found.

Although V was as naive as he is now, he was obviously not as cold-blooded.

Batman looked at Dick's figure which seemed to have shrunk, and he seemed to be able to imagine how V looked when he was first exhausted by the darkness of Gotham.

He reached out and patted Dick on the shoulder: "Let's put the matter of the Court of Owls aside and go find the Penguin."

Dick looked up in surprise and looked at Batman with hope.

"Oswald is one of the sources of darkness in Gotham, and the death of the Graysons is no trivial matter... I have been investigating him, and you can come with me." Batman has already walked towards the door.

"Yeah!" Dick regained his spirit, stood up straight and followed Batman.

Looking at Dick following Batman like a follower, Valerie recalled Helena who had been following her closely not long ago, and she couldn't help feeling sour in her heart.

"I say, are you just leaving like this?" Valerie shouted, "Don't you have a team name for a heroic team like yours? Like the Avengers or something like that."

"It's an interesting name, but it's not necessary." Batman finally didn't pretend not to hear it this time, he looked at Dick. "But you do need a code name, it's to protect the people around you."

"Hush... What a headache... What do you think of the flamingo? Or the sparrow, they both feel a bit like jugglers." Dick said, scratching his head through his hood.

"Are you so obsessed with birds?"

"Of course, since you're a bat, I also want a flying vertebrate," Dick said sheepishly.

"..." Speaking of birds, Batman remembered a song he had heard a long time ago. He spoke as if he had grasped something, "Robin."

"what?"

"Let's go, Robin." Batman didn't explain, he just walked out the door.

"Robin, are you talking about me? I seem to have heard of this kind of bird. Is this my hero code name?" Dick didn't intend to reveal it. He kept up with Batman in small steps while chattering.

The two left the room, and the noisy conversation was buried by the speakers outside until the pneumatic door closed by itself, separating the inside and outside of the room, leaving only silence in the room.

Valerie turned her head and looked at the two drinks left on the coffee table, feeling inexplicably lonely.

"Everyone is busy, it's better to be busy." Valerie picked up a drink and drank it all, then picked up another one and shook it with melancholy.

The night passed quickly. Perhaps because of the heavy rain in the early morning, when the sun shone on the earth again, it was blocked by the morning mist.

Perhaps because all her long-term goals had achieved some staged success, Valerie took a rare break from being lazy and slept until noon.

When she got up again, she did not receive any news that Penguin was imprisoned again. It seemed that last night's work with the new heroic duo did not go well.

However, after returning to the bar, Valerie learned from the conversation of her men that Penguin's gang had a lot of teeth pulled out last night, and he still suffered considerable losses.

In addition to this, Helena returned to the afterlife in the morning, but because Valerie was sleeping, she did not disturb her. Instead, she discussed with Malone about transferring to Gotham.

Perhaps Helena wanted to prove that she could be independent, but Valerie was still a little sad that her little follower didn't come to her when he had something to do.

Today she didn't want to go to the laboratory to do research, nor did she want to build her own space station. The company that sold things was still under planning and approval. Valerie sat at the bar counter, drinking a drink and thinking about what she should do next.

"You look very unaccustomed to it?" Malone, wearing a military coat, walked up to Valerie.

After leaving the Romans and starting his own business, Malone rarely wore a suit.

"I just realized that once my plans slowed down, I was so free that I didn't have any commissions." Valerie took a sip of the drink in her hand helplessly, "What is this? It's so badly mixed."

Baker, who had just taken over as the bartender, was so scared that his whole body froze, fearing that he would upset the legendary V.

"As your fame grows, the price of hiring you is also getting higher and higher, even if you don't particularly care about money now." Malone thought this was a good thing, "And you have basically achieved your original goal now, right? A legendary mercenary."

"Indeed, I originally thought that I would retire after becoming a legend, but now my mentality seems to have changed." Valerie put down the cup and re-examined herself. "To be honest, I have always felt like something is watching me these past few days."

NO59. This study studied

"Are you talking about the Court of Owls?" Just like PTSD, when Malone mentioned the word "being watched", he subconsciously thought of that organization, "Didn't you kill them all?"

"No, it would be fine if it was just the Court of Owls. We can kill as many as we can." Valerie shook her head and said, "What I feel is something more terrifying. It's like they are not on the same level as us... I say, do you believe in the existence of God?"

"Oh my God..." Malone lowered his head and looked at the wine glass that Valerie had placed on the table, as if reminiscing about the past, "I used to not believe in such ethereal things."

"Does that mean you believe it now?" Valerie understood what he meant.

"If it's the kind of existence in religion that is omnipotent and arranges everything, I still don't believe it." Malone smiled slightly, "But I do think there are some more...unimaginable things in the world."

He didn't explain, just stared at Valerie's smooth blue hair.

Perhaps V can also be called God.

"It's really a headache, but... well, if we're being targeted by something like this, it's really not the time to slack off." Valerie stood up from the bar. "Okay, I'm motivated again. Let's find a way to become stronger!"

Valerie scurried away again, her inertia gone as quickly as it came.

Ma Long sat down at the bar, picked up the wine glass in front of him, put it to his nose and sniffed it, then frowned: "What is this? How dare you put something like this on the counter?"

"Sorry, sir, I..."