Againts all Odds || Dick Grayson [1]

27| Wonder Girl

***

Kory, Gar and I were all seated in the drawing room of the train headed towards the house that Rachel's mother had promised. Gar seemed anxious, while Kory was sitting quietly deep in thought. In fact this whole trip the three of us have been sitting in silence lost in our own thoughts now that we seemed to have our first moment of peace after days of being on the run.

"Do you think Rachel's mad at me?" Gar suddenly questioned as he clasped his hands together nervously. Although he attempted to make his humorous remarks from time to time, it wasn't difficult to notice that since the asylum Gar has been acting different. Now that Rachel was spending some much needed alone time with her mother his anxiety and uncertainty was not being hidden by his attempts at lighthearted humor. 

I picked up one of the many shots that Kory ordered quickly drinking it before answering Gar's question. "Why would she be mad at you?"

"At the asylum, when I attacked that guy, maybe I freaked her out." He described quickly, though he seemed more ashamed of himself than concerned about what Rachels thought about him. I vaguely knew about what happened to each of us in that place, Gar seeming to have gone through the worst being forced to kill a man.

"Maybe it freaked you out." Kory corrected as she leaned forward now seeming interested in the conversation or maybe tired of being stuck within her own thoughts. "How did it feel?"

"Weird. I didn't hate it." He admitted as he looked between Kory and I with shame.

Kory shrugged as she leaned back against her seat. "Good. You shouldn't. It's a part of who you are."

"I killed him."

"He could've killed you." I reminded him knowing that even if what he did was wrong, he didn't deserve to carry the weight of the guilt. "You defended yourself, you just need to be more careful next time. Gain better control."

Gar nodded as he took in our words, he seemed to be attempting to find words of his own. I could see that Gar's confidence was only hiding his fear and the fact that he felt like an outsider. It was something that I understood that fear of accepting who you are completely. "When I'm the tiger, it's not completely me. It's like I'm inside something controlling it, but it has control, too."

"You and Rachel have something in common. You're both learning how to control your abilities. It creates a connection between you two." Kory stated her words causing Gar's cheeks to flush scarlet, of course I had noticed the connection between Gar and Kory. At first I dismissed it as a crush between two teenagers, and maybe it was just that or maybe they did have a deeper connection. A connection that was now vividly clear by how the usually confident Gar had now become sheepish. "You wanna make out with her, don't you?"

Gar's eyes widened in horror as he shook his head in denial. "What? No."

"It's perfectly natural, kissing."

"I'm not comfortable talking about this." Gar replied with a nervous chuckle.

Kory and I looked at each other attempting to hold in our own laughs. "You are too cute. You're getting agitated."

"Yeah. You think?" Gar questioned with a boyish smile, one the unfortunately reminded me how I was getting attached to the kid. He then looked down at the shots lined up on the table before meeting my eyes. "Can I have that?"

"How old are you?" I questioned.

"Sixteen."

I took in this information and weighed the pros and cons of allowing this. Though I knew that if Dick was here he would disapprove, but he was a teenager that until now was denied the ability to be a normal teenager. "Sure. Apparently, it helps... with stuff."