Chapter 30 Visitors? Gothamites, huh.
When Dick finally saw Allen lying unharmed (except for the missing spleen and liver) on the hospital bed, slowly opening his eyes, he could no longer hold back. He rushed forward and gently embraced Allen tightly in his arms.
Allen: "...Are you a kid who just got home from kindergarten?"
Despite his teasing tone, Allen honestly wanted to raise his arm to hug Dick back. However, Harry grabbed his hand as soon as he raised it, and Dick was also grabbed by the back of the neck by Harry, forcibly lifted up like a disobedient golden retriever, and thrown aside.
Dick didn't resist much, letting Harry throw him away. But he skillfully dodged Harry's punches and blocked Harry's chokehold.
Alan watched with great interest. From another perspective, Alan felt that his brother's fitness efforts were very effective, and he shouldn't have to worry about Harry being robbed by thugs when he went out alone in the future.
“If I remember correctly, Mr. Grayson hasn’t visited Alan even once in the past few days. How dare he show up in the ward now?” Harry glared at Dick, openly trying to sow discord.
Dick silently retorted in his mind that although Officer Grayson hadn't appeared, he had been staking out the place every night. Matthew was inside the house; he was hanging in the window by the door.
He even sneaked in while Matthew was asleep, stared at Allen for a long time, and even disregarded the legal right to privacy by secretly looking through Allen's medical records.
He knew every detail of his lover's recovery and knew that Allen would probably wake up today.
He dared not come as Dick Grayson, perhaps due to another conflicting feeling. He always felt that if he had simply and decisively arrested the squid, perhaps so many police officers wouldn't have been injured. Even though he was well aware of the squid's danger, he ultimately didn't exercise the greater caution of personally escorting it to prison.
Or perhaps he should have planned more thoroughly and considered things more carefully, so that he could have discovered the Pedro family's strange behavior earlier and prevented them from being murdered to cover it up, which would have implicated Allen in the end.
He suspected that Allen might have sensed something was wrong with the Pedro family when he was at the scene, but was silenced by Alex Pedro.
Unfortunately, Allen's memory of what happened that day was hazy, and he couldn't recall any details.
This behavior only further confirmed the danger Allen had mentioned—he was inclined to believe that Alex wasn't the real killer, but rather that the culprit was someone with magic who could erase people's memories, and that they were after Allen. But he genuinely didn't know who Allen's enemies were.
Alan, seeing Dick, finally breathed a sigh of relief. Before losing consciousness, he had been worried about how many days Dick's soul would remain in this world before being discovered. Now it proved that Constantine, that fraudster, could occasionally produce one or two useful things.
Allen had removed his oxygen mask today, but he still had to lie in bed and couldn't move around easily. Bernard thoughtfully brought over a hot towel to wipe Allen's body.
Dick looked at the old butler Bernard, and a string in his heart tightened again—some bad memories flooded his mind. He was worried that he might offend this old man who cared about Alan, just as he had offended Harry and Matthew.
Although the kind old housekeeper had given him a cup of hot cocoa during the blizzard rescue operation, it didn't mean that the old man was willing to watch his outstanding grandson come out as gay while he was just a police officer.
Dick looked nervously at his wrinkled shirt and muddy shoes, then recalled the fight he had just had with Harry, and was immediately filled with frustration.
However, the old butler simply smiled kindly at Dick, his eyes filled with affection, appreciation, and closeness.
Bernard had noticed the interaction between Alan and Dick during the blizzard that day; the mutual dependence and trust between the two young men could not escape the old man's eyes.
Besides, Bernard wasn't so blind as to not see the overflowing love in Dick's eyes and the tacit approval in Allen's expression. Moreover, he had originally planned to wake up young master Allen, who was sleeping in the lounge, but unexpectedly saw the two of them huddled under the covers, intimately reading fairy tales through the crack in the door.
Although young master Allen probably hasn't developed the "love nerve" yet, judging from the current situation, he feels it's coming soon. Or perhaps Allen already possesses that nerve, but he just hasn't realized it yet.
How wonderful! This is what a kid Alan's age should be doing—having a silly romance, learning to build an intimate relationship through stumbles and falls, not thinking about the uncertainty of the future, and just enjoying the present.
Dick took the towel the old butler shoved into his hand with surprise, then watched Bernard walk briskly out of the ward, supporting his back: "I'm old, and I think you young people can understand how hard it is for an old man like me... Mr. Grayson, would you be willing to take care of Young Master Allen for me? I need to rest for a while."
No sooner had he finished speaking than he swiftly opened the door to leave, pulling Harry along with him and inviting Matthew to have afternoon tea with him.
Dick held the hot towel, thinking that Bernard hadn't given him a chance to refuse! But he really wasn't going to refuse; taking care of his boyfriend was his duty.
Allen lay stiffly on the bed, watching Dick carefully wipe his face with a towel. The towel then moved to his neck, shoulders, and arms, Dick carefully avoiding all his injured areas, his movements gentle and efficient.
Dick didn't say a word, and Allen remained silent as well. A strange atmosphere suddenly filled the space between them, leaving Allen feeling bewildered.
He looked up at Dick, only to find that Dick was also looking at him. A scene that Allen had deliberately ignored earlier suddenly jumped into Allen's mind, catching him off guard.
He vaguely remembered that Dick kissed him when he had a fever.
Allen couldn't help but stare at Dick's lips.
Dick's mouth was very handsome, especially when he smiled. Although Alan himself didn't like to smile brightly—he usually smiled sarcastically or coldly—he couldn't deny that seeing Dick smile would brighten his mood.
Only a little bit.
Allen thought about it with a serious expression.
Noticing Allen's gaze, Dick lowered his head slightly and met Allen's eyes.
He reached out and placed his palm on Allen's cheek, his eyes filled with heartache: "I'm sorry, Allen, I didn't protect you well."
“Your theory is strange,” Allen said calmly. “You have no obligation to protect me.”
Dick couldn't help but laugh. He reached out to smooth the stray hairs that were sticking to Allen's forehead, then cupped Allen's face without hesitation and kissed him.
This kiss didn't have the same comforting quality as before.
When Allen gently opened his mouth, he belatedly realized something: he didn't actually mind exchanging oral microbiota with Dick!
He froze on the spot. But before he could even process what was happening, Dick's kiss had already clouded his mind, rendering him incapable of thinking.
The atmosphere in the ward became thick and heavy.
When the kiss ended, Dick pressed his forehead against Allen's and whispered, "I feel it's my responsibility to protect you. I love you."
Allen held his breath, feeling his heart rate so high it could make the monitoring equipment scream.
But before he could speak, a loud bang came from the doorway.
Alan and Dick looked up and saw Harry standing menacingly in the doorway, holding the cane he had snatched from Matthew.
Poor Matthew stumbled along behind him, supported by Bernard the butler, as the two chased after the furious Harry.
Harry wouldn't listen at all. He was now chasing Dick around the entire ward with his cane, making Dick run away with his head in his hands.
Dick: ...
Isn't this scene too similar?
Poor Officer Grayson, who had just taken a bite of his boyfriend's kiss and was then brutally beaten, flapped his wings and decided to flee the scene, but Allen called out to him: "Dick, I told you before, I want you to stay with me... You're just a soul!"
Upon hearing this, Harry's face turned ashen with anger, but his brother casually deflected the topic with a single sentence: "Dick is with me, and you have to go back to New York. If I remember correctly, Osborne's board meeting is in a couple of days. Aren't you going back to prepare?"
Harry nearly jumped up in anger at his brother: "I'm staying here all for you! If you could take care of yourself, would I need to come here?"
"Well...actually, I'm taking pretty good care of myself," Allen tried to explain. "And Dick is nice too; he helps me."
"Does this mean he secretly kisses you while you're sick? I'll beat him to death!"
The ward erupted into chaos again, and this time Dick didn't want to leave. He thought to himself, since he'd already offended someone, he might as well go all the way; Harry would never like him anyway.
However, at that moment, there was a knock on the ward door.
Harry reluctantly stopped, temporarily returning the cane to Matthew, and casually remarked, "The cane feels pretty good... I hadn't noticed before. Where did you order it? Make one for me too!" specifically to beat up Dick Grayson.
Matthew's lips twitched.
Bernard opened the door to the ward.
Standing outside the ward was a tall and handsome man with a face that had graced the cover of Playboy magazine for years.
This time it was Dick's turn to be dumbfounded.
Gotham Baby maintained her bright smile and greeted everyone in the ward: "Hi everyone, I heard that the young master of the Osborn family is hospitalized here, so I came to pay a visit. I... I don't think I've come to the wrong place... right?"
He looked hesitantly at the fruit, broken vases, and roses scattered all over the hospital room. It seemed that, apart from the bed where Allen was, the rest of the room had been vandalized by someone unknown.
Dick's coat was torn by someone, and he had a bruise on his lip. Harry Osborn's expression was contorted.
Dick: "Bruce? What brings you here?"
Batman thought to himself, "It's all because you're so incompetent and easily swayed by emotions." He needed to get close to Allen and figure out what had happened to the mysterious young master of the Osborn family.
However, he looked more closely at the room: Harry, disheveled and furious; Osborn; Matthew, his eyes vacant but equally angry; Murdoch; Dick, clearly having been beaten; and Alan, lying weakly in the hospital bed, his lips slightly swollen. Osborn thought—
He probably won't get anything out of him today; it looks like Dick did something utterly heinous to Osborn.
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