Saving Grace: a Batman fanfiction

Chapter 20

    The next week was, for lack of a better description, straight miserable. The days seemed to run together in a single, dizzying, painful haze.

    “Hey, Grace,” said Tim, knocking on her bedroom door.

    “Come in,” Grace responded, cozying into her bed.

    “I brought you breakfast,” he said, with a small smile upon seeing her, setting a tray down on her bed. The breakfast special today was french toast-- Grace had a sneaking suspicion that Jason had made it, not Alfred. Jason had been hanging around a lot lately, putting about Grace’s room like a grossly oversized mother hen. He might’ve even been sleeping at the manor, actually. For her.

    “Thanks, Tim.”

    They were all being extra nice to her, even Damian, which was a statement in and of itself. Grace, honestly, wasn’t completely sure if it was guilt and pity over Bruce simply renting and using her or if it was because Nightwing had beaten her to shit.

    But whatever. She wasn’t complaining. She didn’t particularly like any of them (she was determined not to like any of them, except perhaps for Jason) but she would take anything they wanted to give her.

    And she’d owe them nothing because that was what she deserved. She deserved to use them, after they’d used her, right?

    Then Tim spoke again-- God, she’d almost forgotten he was in the room.

    “Dick wants to see you.” He says the words slowly, clearly hesitant.

    Grace laughed shortly, sharply.

    “I’m not up for visitors right now.”

    Tim nodded sheepishly, a hand coming up to clasp the back of his neck.

    “I’ll let him know. Uh… he’s really worried about you, you know?” And then he slipped away before she could respond.

    To revise her earlier statement, they were all being extra nice to her, even Damian, but not Dick, because she hadn't seen Dick yet.  She hadn’t wanted to, not after their relationship was trampled to bits before she’d left the Manor. Her face still flushed red when she thought about that terrible moment that he'd confronted her about the kiss, though that was nothing compared to the shame she'd felt when he'd said he couldn't think about her in that way.

             So no, she didn't want to talk to fucking Dick just yet.

              Just then, the door opened again, and Grace's jaw clenched because if this was Dick disrespecting her boundaries he'd have hell to pay. The figure that came in thankfully wasn't Dick, though. It was Bruce. And Grace didn't want to see Bruce either, because the facade that she'd forgiven him for what he did drained her. Made her heart tired.

             But still, she smiled sleepily up at him when he came in holding a glass of orange juice.

             "Freshly squeezed by Alfie," he explained, handing it to her. Then he stood there awkwardly, looking entirely too big, clumsy, and out of place in her pink and white room. "Look, Grace, I know you don't want to talk about it, but--" he cut her off quickly when she opened her mouth to interrupt, "--I know you don't, but I need you to know that I didn't see you as a…"

              "As an investment?" Said Grace cuttingly.

              Bruce cringed and sagged forward.

              "No." His voice was soft. "I didn't ever care about my reputation, Grace. I still don't. Any of the boys will back me up on that if you ask, I promise. I don't care about my reputation but the people who run my company do. It wasn't my plan to-- to use a child as a marketing strategy, and that's never how I saw it, I promise.”

             "Okay," said Grace after a minute, voice blank.

             Bruce sighed and soldiered on.

             "I agreed to the plan because I wanted to help someone like my boys. Someone like-- someone like I'd been. At the very bottom line, I just wanted to give a kid without parents a place to live. But then we met you, and Grace, I swear, you just-- you just fit in so well here. You're supposed to be here, with us. This is where you belong, and you'll never go anywhere else by my hand, okay?"

    “Okay,” said Grace, forcing a smile onto her face. Not okay. Not okay. Not okay. Liar.

    Bruce still looked concerned when he left, small lines of worry dancing across his forehead.

    Grace wondered briefly if he could read minds.

********************

    “You should go home.”
   
    Tim sighed. So close. He was standing at the secret passage to the batcave, fully intending on going down to do some casework. But then he heard Jason’s voice, spitting, harsh, and angry, and knew he couldn’t leave Dick to an unpleasant demise.

    He’d interpreted the situation correctly, he noted upon walking into the kitchen. Jason was standing there with an oven mitt on one hand, arms crossed over his chest. And god, Jason was the only person probably in the whole and entire world who could still look intimidating with an oven mitt on. Dick was standing by the fridge, eyebrows raised indignantly.

    “Jason, I--”

    “You should just go, Dick. She doesn’t want to see you.”

    “Maybe you should go, Jason,” spits back Dick uncharacteristically. “You’re experienced in that, aren’t you.” Tim cringed at the dig and stepped forward wearily into the crossfire, both hands raised. (He wasn’t expecting Dick’s comment to make him feel, like, kind of sick to his stomach. And he couldn’t quite figure out why. It was true. Jason did know how to walk out of the manor, away from his family. And he did it with gusto. He was only sticking around right now for Grace and it was almost-- almost hurtful? God, he was sounding jealous. This is ridiculous.)

    “Come on, guys,” he says warningly, and then scours Jason’s face quickly for any traces of guilt, to see if Dick’s comment has made any sort of impression. Jason’s face, though, is stoic and scowling as ever.

    Dick sighs, grabs a root beer from the fridge, and leaves the kitchen.

    Jason turns back to whatever casserole he’s pulled out of the oven without so much as sparing Tim a second glance and if Tim is at all hurt by this, well. He just tells himself he should be used to it by now.

    Tim is just sort of standing there stupidly staring at Jason’s back when Bruce walks into the kitchen, a sort of funny look on his face.

    “What do you boys think about going on a family vacation?”

**A/N Guys-- THANK YOU SO MUCH. I never expected Saving Grace to get this many views. We’re at over 6K somehow!! I’m sorry for not updating the story in so long-- I know how obnoxious it is when you’re getting into a good fic and the author just stops updating :(( Just know that I’m going to try my best to keep updating it for y’all! Writing this chapter actually inspired me a lot because it gave me a lot of new ideas for the story.

As always, if you guys have any suggestions or things that you want to see in the story, I will consider all requests so drop ‘em in the comments!!

And again, thank YOU. Y’all motivate me to keep writing. I am THOROUGHLY CONVINCED you guys are the BEST lil community of readers in all of Wattpad <3 <3
Like always, remember to vote :)

Also, last little thing I promise but-- how did y'all like the little Tim pov at the end? Feel like we haven't heard from him a lot in this story :)