Ch. 11: Terrible Aftershock
It had been two weeks since Batman was critically injured. Wonder Woman was sitting next to Bruce's bed reading a book, well holding the book. She couldn't concentrate on the words and found herself re-reading the same sentence over and over. She had too many thoughts going through her head. She couldn't stop thinking about Dick and the look on his face when they arrived at the Watch Tower, Bruce the way he looked lying on the medical bed looking dead to the world, or the way Dick screamed when Superman forced him to go back to Wayne Manor.
She finally decided to put the book down and rested her head on her hands on Bruce's bed.
'Oh, Bruce,' she thought then lifted her head up to look at the sleeping man, 'You've been asleep for two weeks now. Your son needs you. We all need you.'
"J'onn says he's fighting something."
Wonder Woman turned around surprised to hear someone else in the room, but then relaxed when she saw Flash standing there. She turned back to Bruce and then responded. "Yeah, I know, but what could he be fighting that would keep him out for two weeks?"
Flash sighed then walked over to her. He placed a hand on her shoulder. "He'll pull through, he always does. Look, why don't you go get some rest. I'll stay with him and come get you if he wakes up, ok?"
Wonder Woman shook her head. "No, I'm fine."
"Diana..." he looked down at her then sighed, "What about Dick, maybe you should go see how he's doing. Supy said he tried to go see him, and Al said he wouldn't come out of his room, won't even eat."
Diana looked up at him surprised then back at Bruce. "Well, at least he learned something from him."
Barry chuckled then got serious again. "Diana, we all know how much you care about Bruce."
Diana looked at him a bit surprised. She hadn't really thought about it that much, but she knew he was right. She did like him.
"Why don't you go and see if you can get him to at least eat something. Al said he tried everything he could think of, he even said that he was worse than Bruce when it came to eating."
Diana stood up and turned to Barry. "Alright, but if he even stirs I want to know about it."
Barry smiled. "I promise."
Diana smiled then headed toward the door. She turned back around to look at Bruce then sighed and walked out the door.
YJYJYJYJYJYJ
Tiffany was sitting in one of the spare rooms of the mountain thinking about what had happened because of her. Robin got captured, Batman and the whole young justice team almost died, and now Robin was not even heard from. Last she had heard about him was that he wouldn't even come out of his room wherever he was. And the worse part of everything, the team wouldn't let her go back to Wayne Manor. She missed Dick, Bruce, and Alfred, but she couldn't figure out why they wouldn't let her go back there.
She was interrupted from her thoughts by a knock on her door. She got up off her bed and went over to the door and opened it.
"Hi, Tiffany," M'gann said with a shy smile on her face.
Tiffany gave her a small smile in return. "Hey, Meg."
"Ummmm... Can I come in?"
Tiffany thought about it for a few seconds. She didn't really want company right now, but she wanted answers too. "Sure," she said as she opened the door wider and stepped aside so M'gann could enter.
The sat on her bed in silence for about a minute or so before M'gann finally broke the silence.
"You ok?"
Tiffany just continued to look at her hands that were lying on her lap. "No," she said finally as she looked up at the Martian girl in front of her. "I messed everything up, Meg, and now Batman is in a coma, Robin's hiding away from the world, and I can't even go to Wayne Manor and talk about all this with Dick and Bruce." She sighed and looked back down at her hands.
M'gann put a hand on Tiffany's shoulder and just looked at her.
After a few more minutes of sitting in silence, Tiffany started crying for the thousandth time that day.
"Hey, no one here blames you. You didn't kidnap Robin or hurt the team or Batman."
"Yeah but I might as well have," Tiffany said as she got up and walked toward the dresser, her back to M'gann.
M'gann just looked at her confused. "What do you mean?"
Tiffany sighed again then turned around to face M'gann. "I came up to Robin one night and asked for his help. I told him not to tell anyone, not even Batman. I told him about a guy that was following me. We met in the park the next day after school was out. We talked for a while and that's when he showed up. Robin went after him and I just stood there and watched him go. I should have stopped him."
M'gann got up and walked over to her and smiled. "That's what Robin does, he helps people."
"No, you don't understand. I was helping Clayface."
M'gann took a step back when she heard this, a very surprised look on her face.
"I was supposed to help Clayface kill Robin."
"No," M'gann said in a barely heard whisper, continuing to back away from Tiffany, "you wouldn't."
Tiffany looked away from M'gann. "I was supposed to, but that was before I..." Tiffany couldn't finish what she was going to say after she looked up at the Martian girl. M'gann was staring in horror at Tiffany. She put her hand to her mouth and ran out the door. Tiffany just watched M'gann leave. She then sighed and sat on her bed beginning to cry again.
YJYJYJYJYJYJYJ
M'gann was crying now as she ran down the stairs and into the kitchen. She couldn't believe that Tiffany would do that.
"Hey Beautiful, how... hey, what's wrong?" Wally asked after he saw that she was crying.
"Tiffany... she... she betrayed Robin," M'gann told him as she looked up at him.
Wally at her surprised. "What?"
"She was helping Clayface. She knew that he wanted to kill Robin."
Wally looked away from the crying Martian and toward the stairs that led to the rooms. "Why that no good..." He started walking toward the staircase, but M'gann grabbed his arm.
"No, Wally."
"Why?" he asked looking back at her. "Why should she be here if she was helping the guy who almost killed you, me, Rob, Superboy, Kaldur, and Batman?"
"Wally, she's changed. It's been two weeks and she hasn't done anything at all to harm us in any way. I could tell that she had a change of heart, that she doesn't want to hurt Robin or us and that she feels horrible about what happened."
"So what, we just let her stay so she can betray us too?" Wally said as he pulled away from M'gann's grip.
"Wally I don't believe she will betray us. I..."
"You'll what? How can you say that after what she just did to Rob and the rest of this team, to Batman?" he practically yelled as he walked out, leaving M'gann alone in the kitchen.
YJYJYJYJYJYJYJ
Diana knocked on the big mansion door of Wayne Manor and Alfred opened the door. "Ahh... Diana, welcome. I take it you're here to see Master Dick?"
"Yes, Alfred," she answered, "Barry told me that he wasn't even eating."
"No, I'm afraid not," Alfred said as he stepped out of the way to let her in. "I've tried everything that I could think of."
"Let me talk with him."
Alfred nodded and led her to the staircase. He didn't go up with her and then turned and headed toward the kitchen to fetch Dick some launch.
YJYJYJYJYJYJYJ
Diana walked up the stairs and over to Dick's door. She hesitated before she knocked and sighed as she pulled her hand away. She knocked again thinking Dick didn't hear her. She was about to knock a third time when Dick opened the door to look out.
Dick looked horrible. He was pale, his eyes were red from all the crying, he had bags under his eyes, and she could see the bones in his arms to prove he wasn't eating.
"Oh, Dick," she said as she stared down at the boy.
Dick turned back around and went into the room, but left the door open. He knew she was here to try and get him to come out and eat. He didn't want company, but he also knew he couldn't tell her to go away.
"Dick," Diana started as she sat down next to him on his bed, "Alfred told me that you're not eating anything."
"So," he replied not even looking at her. He had his back to her lying down on the other side of the bed.
Diana reached out her hand and started rubbing Dick's back. "Dick, Bruce would not want you starving yourself because he's not here. Do you want Bruce to see that you can't take care of yourself?"
Dick turned to look at her quickly and stared at her in horror. He hadn't thought about that. He knew that Bruce wouldn't be happy that he let himself get the way that he was. Tears started to run down his face as he sat up and dove for Diana's arms.
Diana was happy that he finally realized what he was doing to himself. She could see it in his terrified eyes that he was hurting himself for no reason at all.
Alfred appeared in the doorway with a tray of food watching as Diana rocked back and forth rubbing Dick's back and comforting him in a way that he knew he never could. Diana looked up at him and nodded toward the end of the bed. Alfred nodded back and sat the tray of food on the end of the bed then walked out of the room trying not to disturb the two.
After a few more minutes of crying, Dick sat up and wiped his eyes. He then turned to the tray of food when the aroma reached his nose. When Diana lifted the lid off the tray, Dick's stomach growled so loud he was sure that Bruce could hear it from the Watch Tower.
They both laughed when this happened and Diana knew that Dick was going to change his attitude if not for him, for Bruce.
"Mmmmmm, smells good," Diana said as she handed Dick the tray.
"Alfred fixes the best stuff," he replied grabbing the cup of water on the tray. He gulped down the water and then looked at the food as Diana went to get more water for him.
He had a big piece of lasagna with mashed potatoes next to it, a bowl of salad and hot roles, and a piece of apple pie with vanilla ice cream on top. He picked up the fork and dove right in to the first meal, well the first good meal, he's had in about a week.
When Diana came back in the room, she saw that the food was almost gone. She smiled when she saw this and sat down next to him. She had a pitcher of water and she filled his cup back up.
"Slow down, Dick, you're gonna make yourself sick."
Dick just looked up at her as he took the last bite of his lasagna. He gulped down another whole glass of water and filled it up again and drank half of that.
"Oh, Dick, why didn't you take better care of yourself?" she asked as put all the dirty plates on the tray.
Dick looked down in shame this time. "I... I guess I thought... I guess since Bruce..." he couldn't get the words out that he wanted to say, but Diana knew exactly what he meant. She had almost done the same thing, vowing that she would not do anything until Bruce was awake.
She wrapped him back in her arms and they sat there for a few minutes in silence. Dick finally pulled away thinking that he needed to be strong for Bruce, but he didn't know if he could do it alone. Sure he had Alfred and the team, but he didn't have someone like Diana there to help him.
"Diana?" he asked a bit shyly.
"Yeah," she answered back looking lovingly at him. She sort of considered herself as a mother figure for Dick.
"Ummm... would you... I mean if you don't have anything else better to do..." Dick hesitated a bit, he felt a little uncomfortable asking this, "could you stay here with me?" He got it out, but he asked it very slowly.
Diana smiled at him. "Of course, Dick."
Dick smiled back at her and gave her another hug, but a shorter one this time. He was going to try to get back in shape so that when Bruce did wake up, and he knew that he would, he would look just like he did when this all started.
Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: Truyen247.Pro