AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry it took me so long! Hopefully, it was well worth the wait. I'll try to post more chapters soon.
Chapter 8
No! Stop! Please!
Crying out in his sleep, Dick bolts awake in his bed to find the sun shining through his window. Looking around the room, Dick, for a moment, wonders if it was just a dream. Hearing a noise, Dick jerks around in his bed to look at the door and watches as Bruce slowly steps into the room.
For a moment, the child stares at the man, before he opens his mouth.
"It really happened, didn't it?"
Knowing that Dick wants to hear a denial, but also knowing that it won't help in the child's recovery, Bruce nods his head.
"I'm sorry, Dick."
Slowly and quietly, tears flow down the child's cheeks as he deals with what happened to him last night.
"Why?" asks the boy.
"The police are looking into it," replies Bruce, as he steps over to the boy's bed and sits down on the edge of it.
"Is Batman going to look into it?" ask Dick, as he tries to make himself stop crying.
"I won't stop until I find out who did this," replies Bruce, placing a hand on Dick's arm.
"Knowing won't change anything," replies the boy, shaking his head. "I was getting ready for bed, like you wanted. I heard a noise. Before I got a chance to check it out, someone pushed me down on the bed."
"Did you see his face?" asks Bruce, wanting to protect Dick, but also knowing he needed to know everything that Dick remembered.
Shaking his head, Dick raises a hand to wipe at the tears on his face.
"The whole time, he was talking about you," continues Dick, glancing up at his mentor and guardian. "How you were so safe and he was going to teach you a lesson."
Nodding his head, Bruce stands up from the bed. Glancing around the room, Bruce feels lost for the first time in 20 years. Not knowing what to say, Bruce is saved from having to speak again when Alfred enters the room carrying a tray of food.
"Master Dick," says Alfred, kindly, as he sets down the tray of food on the bed. "I thought you might want something to eat. It's nearly noon."
Shaking his head, Dick pushes away the food. "I'm not hungry."
"Dick, you need to eat," says Bruce, staring down at the boy on the bed. "You need to build up your strength."
"What good will that do?" asks the child, raising his eyes to the man who took him into his home. "Strength didn't do me any fucking good last night!"
Taking aback by the language, Alfred picks up the tray.
"I understand that this will be difficult…" starts Bruce, only to be interrupted by the child again.
"Do you? Do you really, Bruce?"
"Dick…" says Bruce, as he sits back down on the bed, trying to gentle his voice for the hurting child. "I want to help you."
"I don't know what kind of help I need, Bruce," says Dick, as he begins to cry again.
"Master Dick," says Alfred, balancing the tray with one hand and placing the other on the boy's shoulder. "We're here for you. We'll help you get through this."
Nodding his head, Dick turns away from both men.
"The first step is to get back to normal," says Bruce, speaking to the boy's back. "It's already noon, so there's no sense in going to school today. Do you want to take tomorrow off from school also?"
"No," mumbles the boy. "I just want to forget about this. Maybe going back to school will help."
Nodding his head, Alfred turns to Bruce. "I'll let the school know."
Stepping over to Dick's school desk, Alfred sets down the tray of food. "In case you get hungry, Master Dick, I'll leave the tray here and come back later to get it."
Nodding his head, Dick watches at the butler puts down the tray and leaves the room. Left alone with his mentor, Dick tries to calm his breathing and force the tears away.
"If you want to work off some of this…" says Bruce, waving a hand around the room, "I'll be down in the Batcave."
"I think," says Dick, as he turns back toward his mentor, "that sounds like a good idea."
