Mask of Glass

Ch 18

Happy new year everyone! Here, have a chapter.
—McBrube

For the next week both Damian and Jason were thoroughly pampered and doted on by Dick.

"Stop acting like a mother hen Dick. I don't know about Demon, but I certainly don't need you fretting over me day and night." Jason said with a scowl. He was still embarrassed to have been saved by Dick not only from the owls, but by his stitches and blood transfusion. Dick's worrying only intensified his embarrassment.

Damian, on the other hand, secretly loved the attention. He was content to let Dick fuss over him to his heart's content. Of course he had to put up the front of being annoyed about it, but he didn't complain too much, fearing that Dick would give in and leave him alone. The past few days he had curled up and fallen asleep on Dick's lap, enjoying every second of time spent with his brother.

Dick had been patrolling with Bruce and Tim the past week, absolutely refusing to let either Jason or Damian go out. Which irked Jason even more, leading to argument after argument.

"I was just asking if you wanted a glass of water." Dick said dismally, hanging his head.

"If I want water I'll get some on my own! I have legs for goodness sake!" Jason paused for a moment, taking a breath and hoping that he wasn't going to regret the words that were about to spill from his mouth. "That's your problem Dick, you just don't listen. When someone says to leave them alone you do it, you don't just keep messing with them until they explode at you!" Jason shouted, jumping to his feet and stalking across the room.

"Jay, I'm sorry." Dick said in a small voice.

"I don't care!" Jason yelled, turning to glare at Dick. "Just leave me alone! Heck, Damian probably wants you to leave him alone too! I've heard him ask you enough times. Maybe you should just listen. Everyone would be better off if you would just stop messing with them and go away." Jason turned and walked away, not noticing the tears streaming down Dick's face.

Dick spent the rest of the morning sitting in his room with Ace. His conversation with Jason played through his mind on a loop. The spiteful words brought back memories of the time right after Dick's parents had died.

"Nobody is ever going to want you if you won't do as you're told you little freak." A woman had shouted at him.

In truth, Dick hadn't had a good enough grasp on the english language to understand where he was or what the woman had even wanted him to do. All he had known was that his parents were dead, and he was being forced to stay in a place with bars on every window and a bunch of mean kids who were all forced to wear the same baggy dark clothing as he had been.

Dick had stayed at that horrible place for months while Bruce worked diligently to get Dick approved as his ward. The adults who had been supposed to care for the children were both physically and verbally abusive to him as he was the youngest one there, even though he had never once done anything wrong.

Everything had gotten better when Bruce took him in. Dick finally had someone who would love and care for him.

Dick was startled out of his thoughts by his phone buzzing. He had a text from Babs. The text was a picture of the front page of the Gotham newspaper. The title was, "Richard Grayson, ward of Bruce Wayne found alive after five years!"

'Ward of Bruce Wayne. The woman must've been right. 'Nobody wants a disobedient person like me as part of their family.' Dick thought to himself. Even Bruce, the man who had taken him in and cared for him all of these years didn't want him, at least not enough to actually adopt him.

Dick took a shaky breath as all of the negative emotions swirled inside of him. 'Bruce does want me... right? He just never got around to officially adopting me.' Dick thought, trying to reassure himself. But another voice said, 'He found time to adopt all the others...' Dick shook his head, trying to convince himself that it didn't matter. Not being adopted didn't mean he wasn't part of the family... Did it? 'Bruce must care at least a little, he went through all that hassle to make me his ward in the first place. He could've just left me where I was. Why would anyone go through all that effort for a child they didn't care about?' Dick reasoned. 'Guilt...' Was the resounding answer from the little voice in his head. 'He saw them fall too. His parents died just like yours did. He felt obligated to do something, even if he actually didn't want you. He was obligated not to just leave you in the system.'