Her body shutters, spasming in that acute pinpoint of pain. His hands are at the back of her scalp, fisting her hair into a ponytail and yanking. It's good, too good. Barbara' s fingers lay out on his chest as she tries to anchor herself against the onslaught. He is violent, rough, bringing her back into her own body with small pinches and nips and long, soul-destroying kisses.

This isn't them or their normal languid love-making. Ever since they were fifteen years old, they had stolen rushed pecks in the shadows of patrol. When they had the time later, everything was drawn out and prolonged. Always, always over them loomed the risk that one would never return from a mission. So the kisses were sweet, if far from chaste. Even when they progressed from making out to sex, they stared into each other's eyes, afraid to leave and give themselves over to oblivion.

Never had they come so close to loss. His desperation coats her like a second skin, mixing with the sweat and semen. Barbara wears it too, that heady cocktail of pheramones and fear. Just outside their window, the sun paints the cold cement in blood red and orange. The fighting hasn't started yet, the mission hasn't even begun. The plans are in place and they just wait for the appropriate hour to make their move.

Though their waiting consists of mewling screams and guttural moans. Dick drops a kiss between the valley of her breasts, a silent request for her to open her eyes and look at him. He progresses through his fear into something more lasting and permanent. Barbara blinks blearily down at him, barely able to focus through the haze of pleasure. She's so close-and as she tumbles over everything exposes itself to him. Her nails bite into his pectorals, the gasp and sensual droop of her lower lip, and the unequivocal love in her eyes. His face mirrors hers, open and honest and so loving she almost feels crushed by the weight of it.

In exhaustion, she collapses on top of him and his arms immediately band themselves across her waist. If he could merge her to him, he would. Dick would give anything to put himself in the field rather than Barbara; though he could never admit it or she would kill him. Most women want to be protected, she wants the role of protector. Hell if she would give it up to him.

They don't exchange false promises. Dick has been wearing the cowl too long to ask her to swear to stay alive. She is too smart to ask him not to mourn her, to live his life. Both carry responsibility like a chip on their shoulder, as a burden they are meant to wear. Leadership comes easily to them, as does the guilt that comes with it. Yet, that has never stopped Dick from living his civilian life. Now he rolls over her-smirking at her small sigh of contentment-and digs his fingers through the hastily discarded Nightwing suit. He had no room for a utility belt, but he has managed to hide pockets all long the seaming. From there he retrieves the ring. No box, as the heirloom hadn't come with one and it felt wrong to incase it in something new and meaningless when the ring held so much significance.

Barbara doesn't see it at first. Her eyes are closed against the rest of the world, trying to keep the last vestiges of peace within herself before preparing for battle. Dick wiggles on top of her to catch her attention, and her laughter makes both of them smile. His stamina never ceases to amaze her (though her own is nothing to be scoffed at). He presents the ring to her from between his teeth, as if it were a rose and this was tango. She doesn't make a sound. Unable to find the words to express her levels of joy and trepidation, Barbara simply slips the ring on the correct finger. The diamond sparkles joyously from its new home. Platinum vines wrap around her skin and allow the jewel to peek out from beneath carved leaves. It is subtle and beautiful and lasting; just like her. They both know that it was his mother's.

Of course Batgirl runs Alpha Squad. In case of the worst, he places her in an unquestionable position of power. Truly, she should have been there awhile ago but Batman thought her too green. Dick knows better. Barbara is far smarter than him, more tactically skilled, and has an anger inside of her that far outmaches his covered sadness. He saw his parents fall, watched them as they tumbled to the dirt ground without a net. Random, senseless violence which left him so confused and miserable that he was ripe for purpose. Bruce had found him like that, another boy with the commissioner's trench coat thrown over his shoulders unable to truly understand the horror. When he did, all that anger and fear was channeled into Robin. Batgirl, though, watches her mother just walk away. She questions her worth, her value, and tries to make herself priceless. Perfect grades in school, ballet dancer, Olympic level gymnast, beyond black belt in judo-everything to prove to herself that her mother was wrong for leaving. Not that she would ever admit it. Dick observes her, watches her drive and tenacity. Some it is intrinsic to her, but the rest of her skill is from ridiculously hard work. He values it. He values her and finds himself unworthy.

Not that anything could stop him from loving her.

Her gloved fingers secretly tickle his lower back. "Come on, Wingnut," she whispers, "you can't still be caught up in memories of this morning." He responds with a trademark smirk; though it pulls closer to a shit-eating grin. Nightwing can see the gold chain glinting just underneath the collar of her suit. Beneath that, he knows lies his mother's ring. His engagement ring. The necklace surely chafs her as she has never before worn jewelry in battle. Batgirl doesn't mind, though. Its weight on her collarbone serves as a reminder of the one promise she never meant to make: to death do us part. Dick likes it too, she can tell. He pulls off his glove with his teeth in order play with the exposed edge. A finger runs back and forth against the links and the sensitive skin of her neck. Batgirl can tamp down on her emotions, but she chooses to allow that one shiver of excitement. His eyes glitter behind the domino mask, his grin somehow-impossibly-broadens.

"I don't think I'll ever forget, BG."

"What an engagement story. 'Dad'" her voices rises in pitch to that soft, girlishness she uses around her father. "'We have something to tell you. While we were fucking vigour-" Nightwing cuts her off with a hard kiss, all teeth and tongue. Times like these he's grateful she only wears a half mask.

"You're trying to kill me, woman." That's all he can get out when he finally releases her.

Her eyes narrow at the name and the leather of her cowl twitches as her eyebrow raises. Dick knows he'll have to answer for that later, but that she won't say anything in front of the team. The team which had turned from its various positions in the safehouse to watch the two Bat protegees.

Silence and stillness blanket the warehouse-most are in shock. Not that the rising tension between them hadn't been common knowledge, but more that they would ever act on it. Especially so publicly. M'Gann slips Karen a twenty, though her eyes are still fixed on the couple. Only her hand reaches out to place the bill in the other girl's shocked, upturned palm. That simple movement breaks Batgirl from her reverie of surprise, and she whirls around to her fiance-and how delicious the word sounds even in her own mind. She pecks him on the cheek, leaving a bright red lip print in her wake. Before anyone can react, she sashays through the motionless crowd. Her cape follows the seductive metronome of her hips, her red curls flash in the sun from the single skylight, and her embarrassed team scurries after her. Only at the lip of the bioship does she turn around, her words only for him.

"Trying and succeeding." With a bright smile she disappears and the bulkhead closes behind her.

"Dropping off Alpha Squad into Battle Zone One. Be prepared for contact." She is struck with how young they are, her nodding soldiers. Batgirl is twenty and sometimes even she feels much too young to save the world. The point is never age. It's will and skill, both which she has in spades. That is only what gives her the right to lead such a bright, willing bunch: that she herself was one of them and not too long ago. The desperate need to serve and feel impactful is both a close memory (one of the many she never forgets) and her constant companion. They chose this life just as she did those seven years ago, but that doesn't stop her from worrying. Batgirl can't pause in the heat of battle, not as she is about to drop them into a serious combat zone, but she sends them each a maternal smile. I'm here and proud.

"Batgirl?" Robin asks just outside the open door of the plane. "Who's piloting if we're all going to Zone One." He knows the answer. She knows he knows. Barbara only words it for the sake of the comm unit in her ear. Dick, for once, is the only one out of the loop.

"I'm not going in with you, Robin." She hears his intake of breath from wherever he's fighting. "You're going to need to clear the west side of the enemy ship, you understand? Ejection pods are located there and I want every hero with two or three civilians inside of one." Her plan was perfect, everyone would reach safety. Except, of course, for one.

"Babs-no. There's an autopilot on the ship, you don't have to-" Nightwing somehow yells at her while fighting off the kroletearan army. His legs whip out faster and faster, his punches hit harder; as if he can defeat the Reach himself and get to her before she does something incredibly stupid. A sacrifice he thought he never had to worry about such a smart girl making. Barbara Gordon is a fighter, he had just assumed if he lost her it would be in the heat of battle. It is, really, as the aliens are trying to infiltrate their world and destroy it from the inside. But Batgirl isn't in the middle of the fray, doling out fatal roundhouses. She's in the sky, speaking to him calmly and softly even as he threatens to joke on his own anguish.

"Not for what I have planned, Dick. Please, listen to me-"

"No. No. No. Nononono-"

"Richard! I'm going into the Reach's mothership, ETA two minutes. I've set the self destruct on the jet to countdown once it makes contact. That gives me five minutes to override the Reach mainframe and destroy the ship and all those it is in control of. Before that, I will deploy the ejection pods. You are to have everyone on our team-Hold on." Distantly he hears the call of 'Alpha, good to go' and he can see as the reinforcements drop into the zone. Yet he's fighting and talking and somewhere in there crying because he knows he can't convince her out of this. Tactically, like always, it's sound.

"You are to have everyone on our team inside one of those pods with the maximum number of civilians. I swear to god, Grayson, if not everyone makes it out alive I'm going to come back from the dead and haunt you." She makes light of her death because she always knew it was going to happen. Batgirl had placed a bright gold target on her chest and from that first thug's punch she knew that's what it was. Even if she had never donned the cowl, death did not discriminate. Yet despite her rational logic her voice chokes on the word dead and tears soundlessly stream out from under her mask. Jesus, she's crying and she doesn't have the time for emotion because her jet docks against the mothership and the countdown starts. Dick yells in her ear, telling her to get her ass back to him and that if she dies he'll bring her back to kill her himself. That he loves her and-She can tell he's fighting through the armies, trying to make his way back to her. He won't. Not in time. The crowd will push him back, wave by wave, and Tim will make sure he's in a pod by the time she gives the signal.

Her fingers fly over the keys of her wrist computer. The Reach's mainframe uses strange symbols, though their hardware seems surprisingly similar. Batgirl doesn't have to hunt for the USB connection like she thought, finding it right on top of the console. Most likely they had installed it in order to better share files with the humans as they continued to better their relations. Whatever the case, Batgirl now links herself to their hard drive and maneuvers through system protocols. She hacks her way through encrypted files, takeover plans, meta-gene research videos, and pre-Earth contact correspondence. All this Batgirl sends to the computer in the Batcave, knowing Bruce or Tim will be able to decrypt her signature and see who else involved themselves in the Reach's plans. She doesn't think about Dick or she won't be able to finish. Already he distracts her with his voice in her ear, past the point of angry and onto something much more desperate.

"Barbara Eileen Gordon-"

"Richard John Grayson,"

"We're getting married."

"No, we're not."

"We're getting married because you're wearing my mother's ring around your neck and I love you enough to ignore the fact that you're being ridiculous right now and-"

"I love you, Dick. But the pods are good to go."

"I'm not going anywhere. Robin? Hey! What the hell are you doing-No. No! I am not leaving her, what the hell do you-"

"Richard John Grayson-Dick. You're my best friend. My first and my last love. I do. Until death do us part."

"Babs. Barbara-I love you, I-" The transmission cuts off. Static crackles in his ear and the world explodes in a thousands shades of white. Nightwing doesn't have the mental strength to turn his lenses to their night vision. He stares as ship after Reach ship implodes on itself. Ones that they didn't even calculate went off, locations so secret that not even Kaldur and Artemis had been privy to. She did it. Barbara destroys the Reach with the press of a button.

Cheers begin in a low murmur as the team waits for retaliation. With their luck, a second wave of Reach warriors will descend and the battle will start all over again. Nothing happens. The excitement escalates from a soft buzz into a thunderous war cry. They're all screaming and stomping their feet and crying in jubilation. They don't know, not yet, that it's Barbara who saved them all.

Dick sags against the wall of the pod. his legs no longer able to support the rest of his body. His eyes stay fixed on the floor to ceiling window, at the all-encompassing white that only he can see.

So there were a lot typos in the last version of this one. Hopefully I fixed them and the formatting issues. Please review! I have more plans for this but will only write with encouragement