stranger things | dick grayson

twenty two

word count: 2.6k

watch out for incoming drama in the next few chapters!!

~

Walking into the living room, the three kids greeted Eleanor with a wave and a quiet hello.

The atmosphere was heavy.

'Whoa, what's up with the energy in here? It's gonna taint my vibe,' Eleanor muttered as she placed her travel bag down.

Gar closed his eyes and suppressed a laugh as she walked over to the three of them and crossed her arms, waiting for an answer.

Eleanor had been in Detroit for a couple of days. She was visiting her family, telling them what had been happening and why she was in San Francisco, including the truth about her being Crusader. She refrained from telling them what she knew about Scott's murder, hoping to give them some break from all the bad luck.

The funeral itself was heartbreaking, and Eleanor wanted to weep the entire time but she just couldn't muster up enough energy for the emotions to show within her expressions. She was blank-faced the entire service. She was worrying herself. She was starting to feel less and less emotion towards important things.

'What's going on?' She asked them once again and looked at them individually for an answer knowing they would crack under her intense stare.

'Dick picked up a stray,' Jason finally said and rose to his feet.

'Ew, like a dog?' Eleanor frowned. That didn't sound like something Dick would do unless Rachel or Gar were also accomplices but the looks on their faces gave away they had no say in what had recently taken place.

'No, like a human. Brought her in off the streets,' Rachel said and wandered into the kitchen. 'He's in there patching her up right now.'

Eleanor sighed.

'If he keeps taking in any more kids I'm going to need to get a second job. I can't pay these bills on my own,' she muttered in a faux serious voice for their entertainment as she walked her way down the hall, leaving three laughing kids in her wake.

Finding Dick in the spare bedroom, she gently knocked on the door and entered without a response.

He was cleaning his hands at the desk with a wet wipe, but the girl on the bed pulled more of Eleanor's attention. She didn't look like a kid, maybe only a handful of years younger than herself. She had gauze over her left eye and a few scratches on her cheeks, but other than that she looked like she remained unharmed.

'You know if we keep taking kids in, people are gonna start calling us the Brady Bunch— or worse, the Partridge family,' Eleanor said to him quietly, earning a chuckle.

'She needed our help,' he admitted as they both left the room, Eleanor shutting the door behind her softly.

'I understand she might have but you can't take random kid's in off the street, Dick,' she said as she followed behind him back into the kitchen, taking her coat off as she did so. 'I believe that's what some people call kidnapping.'

'Listen, unless you were here, you don't get an opinion, and you weren't here, so...' He said and ran his hands under the water with a shrug.