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Enjoy!
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[David Lance POV]
After I had left to take a shower.
I was greeted by the surprise that Oliver had asked my sister to marry him.
Dinah had said yes.
I was happy for them. Dinah deserved to be with someone she loved and loved her back just as much. And, as immature as Oliver was at times, he loved my sister with all his heart.
He might talk big here and there, but I knew he would shave his precious mustache if Dinah asked him to.
I guess in the end, setting him up with a trap had worked in his favor.
"See, kiddo? You can't escape me!" Oliver chuckled, beaming at me.
I rolled my eyes at him, turning to Dinah with a look that said, you are marrying a child.
"I know," Dinah sighed, giving me a small playful nod.
"I feel like you two are talking bad about me," Oliver muttered, crossing his arms, his eyes narrowing into thin lines.
"Us?! Never," Dinah gasped for the dramatics.
"Really?" Oliver raised an eyebrow, looking at her in disbelief.
"Fine, we do it pretty often. But we do it with love," Dinah winked.
I smiled, giving the archer a slight nod.
"Well, I don't care… I have the most beautiful fiance in the universe and the greatest mustache this world has ever seen. A man can't ask for more!" Oliver declared, pumping his right hand into the air.
"You got the first one right," Dinah chuckled.
"You two envy the mustache's power," Oliver replied, giving Dinah a playful look.
My cue to leave. I have things to do, and quite honestly, they need to celebrate their engagement. ~Well, as lovely as this is, I have some books I want to read, so go out, have fun, and do whatever a recently engaged couple does.~
"To the librrrrrary I seeee.." Oliver purred mischievously, chuckling between words.
"I wonder if you are actually going for the books or racheeeel," Dinah added with an impish smirk on her face.
Oh god. Not her as well.
~This is exactly why no teenager tells shit to their family,~ I signed, rubbing my temples.
"I mean, that's on you, not us," Oliver chuckled, "You told us about your frrrrriend; we didn't ask." He added, purring the word friend out, to imply there was something more.
"Ok, that's enough," Dinah chuckled, playfully pushing Oliver aside. "Go and have fun, don't pay attention to Oliver."
"B-but… you?! You were teasing him as well!" Oliver complained in an insulted manner, crossing his arms.
"See? Non-sense, that's all that man says," Dinah winked at me, insulting the insulted Oliver in the back, who was able to see her wink from his position quite clearly.
No, no, sister, Oliver has a point.
But I won't stay to defend it. I have shit to do and little time to do it. So if I wanted to have time for all the stuff I planned today, like watching a movie after reading, I needed to leave. Now.
~Bye, remember to behave, children,~ I replied, grabbing my wallet before darting out of the house. I had a few things to do before reaching the library, one of them being, buying some vegetarian snacks I had seen Rachel eat every now and then.
—----------------------
I arrived at the library twenty minutes after leaving the house. Greeting everyone inside, I knew with a smile before reaching my spot to find Rachel sitting on the floor, with two bags of snacks and a book by her side.
~I saw you eating… this, so I bought some,~ Rachel signed, pointing at the snacks. ~If you want some, feel free to eat them.~
I smiled, showing her my bag full of snacks. ~I guess we had the same idea today…~
~It seems we did,~ Rachel nodded, offering me a faint heartwarming smile that faded almost as quickly as it came.
~I haven't tried any of these before,~ I replied, putting the bag of vegetarian snacks on the floor. ~Which one would you recommend?~
Rachel looked at the snacks for a moment before replying. ~SunChips veggie harvest farmhouse ranch, they are pretty good.~
I nodded, grabbing two bags, and offering her one.
~Thanks,~ Rachel said before taking the bag from my hands.
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[Dick Grayson POV]
I was avoiding David.
Because I was a coward, that was the harsh yet unavoidable truth.
I was afraid of his reaction to what I had done. I was scared of what telling him meant in the grand scheme of things…
At this point, I was simply looking for self-validating excuses to not talk to him, to prolong that talk for as long as possible, taking a ghosting approach to this, ignoring his calls and messages until he simply decided not to call me anymore, which apparently already did.
I hadn't had a single text or call from him in over three weeks.
I didn't feel better at all with this development.
If anything, I felt worse.
Just as Batman had told me, I would feel.
I knew he was right.
But that didn't make it any easier.
I had betrayed everything I thought I stood for… just because I wanted validation from others. Risking his life, mine, and many others in the process.
I had tricked him. Abusing his trust in me, for my own benefits.
I had risked so much, for absolutely nothing worth the sacrifice.
After all this time, I was but a child playing hero. I always thought of myself above my peers, kids, and anyone my age, but SURPRISE SURPRISE! All along, I had been the child, one that is willing to lie, to cheat, and more to get his way.
I'm pretty sure that's the definition of a spoiled brat.
How pathetic is that?
I'm not even a normal brat; no! WHY settle there?! I mean, I had to be the worst type of brat, the spoiled kind. Right?!
"Robin," Bruce said, entering the cave, as I worked my frustrations on a training dummy. "I know it's easier said than done. But you have to face the consequences of your actions, sooner or later."
"I know," I replied, punching the dummy, trying to avoid this talk.
"The more you wait, the worse it will be, for you and for him," Bruce added, pulling me into a hug. "You made a mistake; everyone does. It's up to you to learn from it. Remember, when you make a mistake, there are only three things you should ever do about it; admit it, learn from it, and don't repeat it. David might not forgive you right away, but if you show him you learned from this… I promise you that eventually, he will open up."
I nodded, tears welling up in my eyes as I sighed heavily, letting my head drop on his chest.
"That's how we learn. We learn more from our mistakes than our victories; our mistakes have more to teach us than you might think. Making mistakes does not mean you're a failure. It just means you're trying and learning in life." Bruce said, letting me cry on his suit. "However, you have to remember, son; you can never make the same mistake twice. The second time you make it, it's no longer a mistake; it's a choice."
If you want to read up to 20 chapters ahead go to https://www.patreón.com/cornbringer
Discord invite: https://discord.gg/XHduApz
Enjoy!
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[David Lance POV]
The night had already fallen on the mountain, where I had come to have some alone time, leaving Dinah and Oliver to enjoy the weekend alone, leaving me with no one else but my thoughts, in a small room in a cozy-looking inn. Outside the old inn, the wind howled ferociously, making the old walls of the inn creak worryingly, as the inn was mostly made out of wood.
Currently, I was at the inn's restaurant, sitting at a table waiting for my meal with a book in hand reading, a book Rachel had recommended for that matter, an empty plate of garlic bread a few inches away from my hand.
When I had come down to eat, the restaurant had been empty, but over the few minutes I had been waiting for my steak, some men and women had arrived, spreading out around the tables lit by antique chandeliers.
"Here you go, sir," The waiter said, arriving at my table with my food on a small silver tray. Steak with mash potatoes and a salad on the side, the mash potatoes with extra cheese and bacon, and the salad with the dressings on the side.
I smiled at him, giving him a slight nod as he put the food in front of me. His service so far was promising a big tip; what can I say? The garlic bread had been to die for.
"If you need anything, just raise your hand, and I'll be here in a flash," The waiter smiled, giving me a quick nod.
I nodded in appreciation before getting ready to dig into my food, grabbing the silverware on the plate. Wondering if his last bit had been a Flash pun.
I was enjoying this, having time alone. It was refreshing. And the best part was that my therapists had recommended it, meaning Dinah and Oliver had no reasons to complain; heck, Oliver had given me a credit card with no limit to use for that very reason, for my alone time.
"Help," However, before I can bite into my delicious dinner, someone opens the restaurant doors, croaking faintly, their voice barely audible over the sound of the howling wind. "Please... someone.... help!"
With a tired sigh, I rose from my chair, walking towards the exit of the restaurant, before my eyes caught sight of the silhouette of a man standing in the doorway, bleeding into the floor.
Blood slowly coating the floor in a gory sight, I rushed towards the man, noticing in the process that besides me, no one had any intention of assisting him.
Now I felt terrible for sighing.
I had wholeheartedly expected his call for help to be for something less urgent.
"Help," The man croaks, collapsing into my arms as I inspected his wounds. It looked as if he had been injured by a large animal, a bear perhaps, possibly something bigger. But what could be bigger than a bear in the mountains?
No time for that. First, I needed to treat his wounds to prevent him from dying of blood loss or an infection before the ambulance arrived, which I hoped someone had already called.
"There's a man dying in the inn! Please send someone!"
I guess they were calling now.
Luckily for the man, I never left my house without my first aid kit.
"There's a monster in the forest..." The man whimpered as I tended to his wounds, waking up as I started to clean his gashes, his hand reaching out towards my arm weakly. Immediately after this, the man faded back to the unconscious level.
Usually, I would rule the words of a wounded man as non-sense because, more than not, factors like blood loss and trauma affected the perceptions of oneself; however, in this very specific case, his words were nothing but the truth.
His wounds corroborated his words for the most part; there was no animal on earth with claws that left marks like these.
I knew that.
Batman had made me memorize every type of claw in the animal kingdom, amongst other things, in order to be able to rule out certain parameters during an investigation.
"Sir, do you need any help?" The waiter offered nervously, his face morphing into one of horror upon witnessing the state of the man lying on the floor.
I nodded, hoping the offer was still up, even after seeing what he would have to deal with.
"W-what do you need to d-do?" The waiter nodded, taking a deep breath, averting his gaze toward me.
Seeing the waiter didn't know sign language, I pointed at an empty table and then at the cleaning bottle dangling on his belt.
"You want me to clean that table?" The waiter asked.
I nodded, turning back to the man to continue treating his wounds. After I stabilized his condition, I would go out for a walk in the woods to see what I was dealing with.
"Hi... I-I'm a n-nursing student. Do you need help?"
I turned around to see a woman in her late twenties, as well as many others behind her, coming to help.
So that's why no one had rushed to help but me. They had been under the psychological phenomenon known as the bystander effect, which states that sometimes the presence of others discourages individuals on a subconscious level from intervening in an emergency situation.
I smiled, giving her a slight nod. Showing her my first aid kit, the one I could carry around without telling the world I was a superhero, which had more than enough things to treat wounds like this.
"The ambulance will be here in five minutes," Someone in the back said.
"O-okay, I can do this," The nursing student stammered, applying pressure on the wounds as I finished cleaning them. "Do... do you have antibiotics?"
I nodded; I had some amoxicillin and trimethoprim in my personal first aid kit.
"Then we need to administer him with some to avoid any possible infection he might have acquired from spreading," The nursing student added, doing a wonderful job keeping her stammering in control.
I nodded once again, pointing at my first aid kit.
"Good, you have amoxicillin... that works for animal-related wounds," The nursing student muttered, grabbing the antibiotic from my bag.
I wonder what kind of monster attacked this man...
Or why the thought of going out to find the culprit made me feel somewhat anxious. It wasn't fear, far from it, frankly, but it was enough to tell every fiber in my body I had to keep my guard up.