Water Bender of DC

-{ I'm Staying? }-

-[ Wayne Manner, Gotham City ]-{ Tonraq }-

'Good night, brother, I love you.' Was the last thing I heard from Unalaq before I woke up. In waking up I was very confused at first, but when I remembered the events from yesterday I calmed back down. Then, not wanting to cause any annoyance or anger, I decided to get up. So I stood up, took a moment to retie my hair, straightened out my clothes, tied my coat around my waist, and decided to take a look at the bruise from yesterday. It wasn't too bad, as it had just darkened a bit more and was a little tender and sore, but nothing really worrying. And just as I finished up, there was a knock on the door to the room, then after a second it opened up to show Alfred.

"Oh, good, you're awake." He stated as he opened the door all the way and took a step in, so I took a step back.

"If you would follow me to the dining room. Master Bruce is already down and Master Dick will make his way down shortly." He continued on as he noticed my movement and the bruise, but brought no attention to it. Then he turned around and started walking down the hall while leaving the door open, but I didn't follow him.

'Do I actually follow him? Am I really supposed to follow? He did leave the door open. Do I take a chance?' I thought to myself but was cut off as I saw Unalaq again, he was encouraging me to go through the door again. And since he hasn't led me to stray yet, I started to follow.

We walked along more halls and pretty soon we reached a big room with a long table in the center, chairs surrounding it, and there at the head sat Bruce. Alfred motioned for me to sit and walked away again, but I wasn't sure where I was supposed to sit. So I ended up standing there for a bit, taking the chance to look around, but Bruce soon looked up at me and motioned to his right. So I walked over, a little more comfortable because of yesterday's events, but I was still hesitant.

'How close do I sit to him? Father usually just wanted me within his reach. But so far he's been letting me choose my own distance. Is it still the same for this situation?' I thought as I walked and debated with myself, but I was getting closer and running out of time. So, not really knowing what prompted it, I decided to take a chance, so I sat down with a chair still between the two of us, out of his reach. And to my utter relief and surprise he did nothing, no comment, no yelling, no look, no movement, no anger. Just calm.

"Good morning Dick." Bruce's sudden greeting caused me to flinch slightly as it startled me from my thoughts.

"Morning B." Dick tiredly greeted back as he took a seat to Bruce's left.

"Good morning, Master Dick." Alfred spoke up while walking in with a serving tray. He walked around the table behind Dick, and stopped at the corner between both him and Bruce.

"Is there anything on my schedule today, Alfred?" Bruce spoke up as he leaned back to give Alfred some room to set down the plates he was carrying.

"Not anything that would require your presence, sir, but I do believe you have some emails to attend to." Was all Alfred said as he set a plates of food down, then a cup of coffee and juice respectively in front of Bruce and Dick.

Through that whole interaction I kept my eyes down and away from the food, as I usually did while waiting for my own food, or to just be dismissed entirely. As I always had to finish doing things like chores and other work before my father would give me anything, or I would have to wait even longer and go through training first. So you can imagine how surprised I was when a plate and cup is set in front of me. There were a couple of pancakes, which I haven't had since I was a kid– before the bending– some bacon, eggs, and to my delight there was also some fruit, which I didn't see very often since fresh food like fruit was a bit harder to ship to the south, and my father usually kept whatever he could get his hands on to himself.

"You can eat." Bruce suddenly spoke up gaining my attention, but I was very skeptical of this due to the amount of times I've been crossed with those very same words when I was younger. The amount of times I've gone hungry, been beaten, or just tied outside or in the room. So to say the least, I did not trust his words in the slightest bit.

'But he hasn't lied yet. He's let me choose the boundaries so far. Can I afford to take another chance?' I thought to myself as I assessed Bruce for his reaction. And I still don't know what's come over me, but I decided to put what little trust I had in this man to the test. So I slowly picked up the fork, got some eggs, and went to eat it. With every step and movement I made, I watched for Bruce's reaction. He seemed calm and unbothered, so I continued to push it and kept eating as well as drinking the juice that was in the cup. And surprisingly I ended up being able to finish the plate and cup.

"Very good, you were able to finish the plate." Alfred spoke as he took the empty plate from me as well as the ones from Bruce and Dick, but I wasn't very sure how to respond to that.

"Now that you've had something to eat, we can talk." Bruce suddenly spoke up as Alfred continued to clear the table.

'There it is. He's played nice so far, and now he wants something in return.' I thought to myself as tensed at the attention now turned to me.

"Since you're going to be staying here, your going to need legal documents, but that can be taken care of at a later date." Bruce started to explain, which cought me completely off guard.

'He wants me to stay? He's ok with me staying? He's not asking or demanding anything in return?' Those types of questions kept going through my head, Bruce continued to talk about all of the steps he was going to take in a broad sense, and said that he would elaborate later on when we got there.

"But for now, you can go with Dick. He'll show you around. Then we can go into town to get you some stuff." Bruce ended his explanation and with that Dick excitedly got up and ran over to me, grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me out of the room.