Chapter 9 starts after this disclaimer.

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from Batman or any other DC comic. If I did, Red Arrow would have joined Young Justice, and wouldn't have been the mole.

Tori POV

My body felt cold and numb, and all I could hear was the sound of heartbeat pounding wildly in my chest despite the drugs in my system. "You know, I wonder sometimes why Janet even bothers training you. You aren't an assassin. An assassin would have no problem killing me. No wonder your mother left you here. Your brother must be disgusted to have such a weak sister. You're pathetic." Jack sneered as he kicked me in the stomach again. I rolled over with a groan, and coughed. Specks of blood dotted the floor in front of me.

"At least I'm not as low as you to drug someone before hurting them." I said though it came out a bit gurgled. Jack's eyes narrowed into slits, and he kneeled down to my face.

"What did you just say, brat?" He snarled, his face twisted into an ugly scowl. I spat at his face in response, and his face was stained with my blood. He growled at me, and slammed my face into the concrete floor.

"You brat, I'm going to make you pay for that." Jack said pulling his belt out of the loops of his pants. The back of my shirt was yanked up, and I cried out when the leather came into contact with my skin. Tears pricked my eyes, but I refused to cry in front of the man who found pleasure in my pain. The belt came down again, and I shouted.

"Does that hurt yet, brat?" He asked tauntingly. I gritted my teeth together, and bit my lip to stop myself from screaming again.

"Well, lets see if we can get another scream." Jack said pulling his arm back again. When it landed, I held back my scream of pain. He lashed at me again, and again, and again. Each hit left welts, and I felt a sob trying to break through my body.

"Well, since that's not getting a response, maybe we should try something new." He said pulling out a knife from his sheath strapped to his waist. When the blade touched my skin, I screamed. Ever so slowly, the long ago memory shifted to total darkness until I shot up in my bed screaming bloody murder.

The door suddenly shot open, and light pooled into the room to show Bruce standing there in sweat pants and no shirt. Great, another parent had to see me weak. Would he throw me out like Talia did when I started showing weakness? I was starting to like it here, and I didn't want to leave, but I was so freaking pathetic he was probably going to tell me to leave now. Sobs wracked my body at the thought, and I felt tears pour down my face like a waterfall. What happened next confused me.

Bruce sat next to me, the bed dipping under his weight, making me lean more into him. His arm wrapped around my shoulder, destroying the space left between my head and his chest. His hands were rubbing circles into my back, and it made me cry harder. Because I didn't know why he was doing this. It didn't make sense. Talia had called my feelings a weakness, then kicked me out of the house for them. If he liked Talia, wouldn't their ways of thought be the same?

When I eventually stopped crying, he tugged my chin up so I could look at him. "What was it about?" He asked, his voice sounding gentle and concerned compared to how he usually sounded as Batman.

"Jack. Did Damian tell you yet? It wouldn't surprise me if he did. He's always been a snitch with this kind of stuff." I sniffed. He shook his head no, and resumed to rub calming circles into my back.

"Dick did hear you mention something about living with an abusive man in the cave. It was simple enough to figure out. Why did you let him hurt you for so long?" Bruce asked. Did I really have to repeat this with Bruce?

"You wouldn't get it." I mumbled, my eyes looking down as I yanked my chin from Bruce's grasp.

"Try me." Bruce said with a patient look.

"I didn't want to go too far. If I tried to fight him back when I wasn't being drugged, I would have killed him. And after seeing what that has done to the people in Ra's Palace, I didn't want to cross that line. Besides, it would have given Talia and Ra's too much satisfaction." I said quietly. I waited for the a laugh, or a get out of my house, but all I got was an upward twitch of his lips.

"Good. At least one of you twins understand that." Bruce said, his hand starting to run through my hair. I blinked up at him owlishly. Was he not going to kick me out? And was he actually approving my choice?

"So... you're not going to make me leave?" I asked, voicing my fear. He shook his head, and his semblance of a smile dropped.

"Did you actually think I was going to kick you out for having a nightmare or for not killing? Everyone in this house has had them at some point or another. Dick had them, Jason had them, Damian had one last week. Even I have nightmares." Bruce said smirking as I stared at him with even wider eyes. The great batman has nightmares? He had to be lying.

" Ra's and Talia viewed that as week, and that was probably why they sent me to Janet's. But how could you have nightmares? But, your Batman. Terror of the night, the guy that makes the baddest of the bad pee in their pants, and the first human member of the Justice League! How can you have nightmares? What could you possibly be afraid of?" I asked with disbelief.

"Everyone's afraid of something. Even me." Bruce said softly. It must have killed him to say that. Nobody liked admitting they were afraid of something, especially the people in this family. His eyes scanned me over, and stopped at the scars on my arms. Something passed over his eyes, and he narrowed his eyes at the scars. Then something changed in him, like a mother bear finding out her cub had just been hurt. Was this the Daddybats that Jason and Dick were talking about?

"Why didn't you mention them?" Bruce said, his jaw grinding together. My head dropped down to the sheets, and I started to trace random patterns in the sheet.

"It didn't seem important." I mumbled softly. He sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose with the hand not running through my hair.

"Why wouldn't scars that are easily seen be important?" He asked.

"Well, I'm not important, therefore, my scars aren't important." I replied simply. How was that hard to see? Talia, Ra's, and Jack pointed it out often, and Janet probably didn't do it because she was at work.

"You are important Tori. What could make you think that you weren't?" Bruce said looking down at me a little sadly. I bit my lower lip while I debated if I should tell him or not.

"Jack, Talia, and Ra's. They said it a lot when they saw me, and I took the hint that I just wasn't important." I said shrugging. Bruce frowned, and forced me to look at him again.

"Tori, does Jack, Talia, or Ra's seem anything like good people that would care about anyone?" Bruce asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, no. But-" I said with a frown.

"But what? What part of them would make you think they care about anything but themselves? All 3 of them are uncaring, and would gladly hurt you. What would make them right about you?" Bruce asked moving his hand from my chin.

I opened my mouth to say something, and then closed it again. My head dropped, and I stared at the sheets again. "No one said other wise." I murmured.

"Well, I'm saying other wise. Do you think I'm wrong?" Bruce asked. Could the Batman ever be wrong? I shook my head no, and pulled my knees to my chest. He sighed, and pulled his hand from my hair.

"Get some sleep. I think you could you use it." Bruce said pushing my shoulder to lie down. I blinked up at him, and couldn't help but think he was sounding very hypocritical.

"Isn't that a little hypocrite coming from you?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. His lips quirked up a little.

"Go to sleep. Your going to need it if your going to clear things up with Damian." Bruce said standing up and walking towards the door.

"There's nothing really to clear up. I explained myself fine, Damian just didn't understand. He's like Talia sometimes, he doesn't know you can't just kill all of your enemies." I said curling up into a ball on the bed.

Bruce sighed, and left the room, turning the lights off. I yawned, and looked at Bruce's fading shadow leave.

Maybe living here wouldn't be as I thought.

Bruce POV

I walked down to the cave, and started looking through Ra's plans again. Damian had said he was most likely to go for the plan that caused the most damage, but also one of the less public ones. It narrowed it down to 2 options, but so far, I wasn't sure which one it would be, and Barbara had gone to bed, so it was just me. He was either going to take over Gotham, and blackmail one of us into joining him. Or he was going to kidnap us all, take over the major cities, and then pick from one of the people he kidnapped. The first made more sense. He knew we weren't easy to take, even if the former robins did get the nickname boy hostage.

"Have you talked to Mistress Christina?" Alfred asked walking next to me. I nodded, thinking back to the one ten-year-old in the house that understood no killing. She was definitely going to need time to get used to living here, maybe more than Damian. I sighed, and thought of how we were going to prevent the attack on Gotham.

"She will need time to get used to it here, but I think she will be fine here." I said, pulling up a map of Gotham. They could get through into the ports, or even the airlines as tourist. Thousands of ideas ran through my head as I stared at the digital map with determination.

"I am glad to hear that. You should go to sleep soon. Batman's patrol is over with, and you have a meeting in the morning." Alfred advised.

"I'll go to bed soon, just after I figure out how Ra's will come into Gotham." I said dismissing him with a wave. He turned with a sigh, and left.

I hope you guys liked the talk Bruce had with Tori. Review if you didn't, and if you did, still review.