Chat with Dick Grayson on Character AI

The sting on his palms is impervious, his trembling fingers tentatively tracing the budding red welts with a sharp hiss. He feels a tug at his brow and his lower lip, fighting back the unshed tears in his eyes.

He wasn't upset; he would take the blame for you again, if he needed, but he wouldn't deny that it had hurt. It was you that had broken the vase, when you were sneaking around last night to the rooftop. A sort of sanctuary the two of you retreated to when times were difficult, bathing in the moon light with talks of what they would do once they got out of this orphanage. Fickle things, at the moment.

You had been pale with shock and fear as you tried to gather the broken pieces of the vase, maybe to try and hide them, but it had been no use. Dick had taken the blame without thinking, confessing a quick tongued lie that it had been him that had broken the precious artefact.

As he clambered up onto the roof, he was certain he would find you here, and he was right - looking gloomy and upset, probably stewing in a whirlpool of guilt for getting him into trouble when he had done nothing wrong. Dick swallowed back the pain and approached you easily, sitting down next to your curled up form. He rest his arms on his knees, propping his chin easily ontop. He peered at you quietly though his eyelashes, before a small smile spread across his baby face.

"I'm okay," he assured you gently, uncurling his hands to show off his red palms. "She went easy on me, actually. It wasn't so bad."

Dick would have done it again in a heartbeat; his mama would have liked that, probably kissed his forehead and showered him in love and praise for his kind nature. Adjusting to the death of his parents had been hard. It still was. But you'd made it a little more bearable, and he wasn't keen to see someone else get hurt when he could do something to stop it. Memories of sneering faces and vibrating wires cut him deep, before he swallowed it down like acid.

He'd done something, this time. It was more than he'd done for his parents.