Chapter 12

Barb sighed as she sat down on the couch next to Dick.

"That bad, huh?" he asked her, putting his arm around her and pulling her head to his shoulder.

"Yeah." They sipped their tea in silence, neither one wanting to go first. As she took another sip, she felt Dick's chest rise with a big inhale. Curling her legs up underneath her she got comfortable and waited for his speech.

"If you want," he began, then paused, "I could try to talk to him."

Surprised, Barb raised her gaze to meet his. "Talk to him? Talk to who?"

"Not buying it Babs," he told her only half-joking. "You two haven't been right for, well, for a really long time now. But lately-I've kept my distance because I knew he needed me to, but I watched him take punches from Killer Croc tonight that never should have landed. I stayed out of it because he pulled it together, but I haven't seen him this bad since before Bane."

Pulling her gaze away Barb stared at the muted TV and sipped her tea.

"What happened?" Dick asked her softly. "This is me, here. You can talk to me."

"Dick," she sighed. "We dated for Christ's sake. I'm not going to talk to you about my…relationships." Pulling away from he she stood and paced back into the kitchen.

"Who else can you talk to Babs?" he pushed. "Before we were anything else we were friends. Let me listen to you, that's all I'm offering."

"Have you thought about how fucked up all of this is?" she said on a harsh laugh, spinning around to face him. "You…I…we were each other's first Dick. We figured out sex and love together. And he's like your father. And now I'm…and he's…and it's just way to fucked up to talk about with you." She turned back to the window, tired of holding it together. Tired of needing to hold it together.

"Hey," Dick said softly from behind her, "it's not like anything in our lives has ever been normal. It seems pretty silly to be shocked that our love lives are complicated too."

Barb turned her sob into a laugh at that. "I am so tired of being sad," she told him.

"I know," he said gently. "Loving him has never been easy. For any of us."

"Loving hi-?" she gasped. "I don't love him. Not like that." She paced back away from the sink, going around Dick to circle the living room like a trapped animal.

"Babs…"

"No," she cut him off. "You don't get to tell me how I feel. I know what I feel. And what I don't. Do not put words in my mouth!"

"Babs," he said again more seriously. "You do not get this mopey and depressed over a fling. Hell, you were never this depressed about me."

"Why are you here?" she asked him harshly. "Really, why are you here?"

"I knew you needed a friend," he told her simply.

"No, that's not good enough. We're done Dick. We're over. We're never going to be not over again. Do you understand?" she shot at him.

"I'm not here about us Babs," he said patiently. "I'm here because it's clear the two of you are killing each other and I can't stand to watch it."

"I'm tired," she told him walking to the door. "I appreciate that you care, and I appreciate that you stopped by. I promise not to let myself get distracted while on patrol. Thank you good night." She opened the door and stood there holding it, but Dick didn't move.

"Let's watch a movie."

"What?"

"Let's watch a movie. You're pick," he said.

"Dick, I'm tired."

"I know. Me too. So let's watch a movie together," he paused, "as friends. Just two friends hanging out."

"Why are you doing this?" she sighed, but let the door close.

"It's what I do," he replied with a cheeky grin. "You think I could have grown up with the old man and not ended up stubborn?"

"He is not old," Barb mumbled under her breath.

"Heard that!" Dick shouted as he walked back to the couch and sat down.

"Put something in," Barb told him with a sharp elbow to the ribs.

She woke up sometime after the sun had set. Thankfully she wasn't supposed to work today since she had forgotten to set an alarm. She didn't know why she had slept so long, but it was time to go to work. Looking out her bedroom window she saw the muted color of twilight and stumbled into the kitchen for some coffee. As she pushed the button on the coffee maker, she pulled a clean mug out of the strainer and nearly dropped it with a shriek when she glanced out of the patio door.

There he was. Just across the street on the roof that made for such easy access when she patrolled, but now made her wish she lived in a penthouse. She saw him stand and immediately rushed for the door; her vision red with rage. She was not going to ignore this.

Ripping the patio door open she was screaming before she was even outside.

"Oh no you do not get to just walk away!" She saw him pause, his back to her, but he didn't turn around.

"I will make a ruckus," she said softer, but with no less heat. "I will make sure every person in this building knows you're standing just outside."

He turned, ran, and jumped the distance to her balcony easily, landing in a crouch. Barb felt her breath whoosh out of her on a gasp; why did it always surprise her how fast he was? And how big? He rose, his cape rustling soundlessly around him and stood like granite staring at her.

"Why are you here?" she demanded, more breathlessly than she liked.

He didn't answer, didn't even twitch.

"God damn you," she hissed. "God damn you to hell!"

Spinning on her toe she stormed back inside her apartment, not bothering to close the patio door. He would leave. Or he would stay. Nothing she did would change that, and that was what really upset her. She had no power over him, never had. He would do what he wanted to do, and when what he wanted to do was her she would always feel so honored, so special. When he deigned to share any amount of time with her, no matter how small, she would perk up like a freshly watered flower looking to him for more nourishment. This was not her life. This wasn't her.

She felt more than heard him enter the room, his movements always so silent. The patio door slid closed and she heard the blinds clink shut; the room was plunged into gloom-the only light a small one above the sink. Still unsettled by his sudden appearance she turned slowly, shocked to see his mask pushed back. He stared at her without barriers; along with the mask, he seemed to have pushed all of his normal reserve away too. His eyes burned as he stared at her, his stubbled jaw gaunt and his cheeks hollow like he hadn't slept or eaten in days. He probably hadn't.

Her heart seized and her first instinct was to go to him. And then Barb understood. She understood those sad women she had saved over the years who never went to the shelters. She understood why they screamed for her not to hurt the men who, only minutes before, had been beating them. All those years of judgment and scorn on her part, and suddenly, just like that, she got it. Bruce may never hit her, but he hurt her as surely as any criminal she had ever faced. He made her second guess herself and her choices. He made her dissatisfied when she wasn't with him. He was like a drug that she had tried to quit cold turkey and now, with him standing in her apartment in the dark, her body lit up like a Christmas tree; she was a junky about to get a fix.

Disgusted with herself she swallowed tears.

"Why are you here?" she asked softly. At least her voice didn't shake.

"I don't know," he said with a harsh whisper. She shook her head at him and her fingernails dug half-crescent moons into her palms.

"Are you and Dick…seeing each other?" he blurted.

She was so shocked it took her a moment to process the question. "What?"

"Are you and Dick," he trailed off, almost as if it took too much energy to say it again.

"Is that why you're here?" she said, her voice rising. "Because you're worried I'm fucking Dick?"

He flinched at her words as if he'd been slapped, but said nothing.

"It is," she went on relentless. "Why the hell do you care? You would have left me in a few weeks anyway; it's not like we were going to last. Why do you give a rat's ass who I fuck?"

Still he said nothing, though Barbara thought she saw a fine trembling shake his body.

"Always so in control aren't you Bruce?" she said snidely. "I mean you have to be. I do understand that, and it's not that I'm trying to make you lose your temper. Oh no, we wouldn't want big bad Batman to lose his temper now would we? What would you do, do you think? Hit me? Fuck me? Turn around and leave without saying a word and beat some poor drug dealer into a bloody pulp?" She just kept pushing, pushing, pushing.

"Some 'poor drug dealer'?" he finally responded softly. He wasn't moving any more; he wasn't trembling or shaking or even breathing. Barb didn't care if he stood like a statue in her apartment for all eternity as long as he didn't shut her up. Not this time, no-he would not shut her up again.

"The shit of it is," she pushed, "is that it doesn't-didn't-not have to work. Between us I mean."

She paused, looking at him as she said that, but his face remained stoic.

"I'm not saying we had to get married and live happily ever after. Hell, I'm not even sure I want those things let alone with you," she remarked off-handedly, "but it's not like you're a sociopath. I mean, you're definitely neurotic, depressed, possibly bi-polar, maybe even-no for sure obsessive compulsive, but you aren't incapable of feeling things. You love Alfred. You love Dick. But you can't love me can you? Is it because I'm a woman or because we had sex? Which of those two things means you will forever be ruined for me?"

On a rational level she knew she wasn't being fair. Rationally she knew he had to be feeling guilty about the Joker, the Lazarus pit, all of it; she knew how he took those things on himself, and rationally she understood that he did care for her in some fashion. But emotionally-emotionally she had never felt it, and he certainly never showed it. The way he had treated her after she was shot, as if she didn't matter or like it was a flesh wound and she was over-reacting-Barb wasn't sure she could ever forgive him for that. It wasn't his distance or his stubbornness, no, a girl couldn't willfully enter a relationship with the Batman and not anticipate being put on the back burner some times; rather, that when she should have been the problem of the Batman, when she was, in fact, the very thing he was focusing all of his energy on-it still wasn't about her. It had been about the Joker, her father, himself. Nothing he had said or done showed any real distress because she had been shot. She put up with him, accepted him, loved him because she thought that in his own way he had cared, if not loved, her too. But when the chips were down it was Dick and Alfred and Tim that had stood by her side.

She spun around and gave him her back. The tears were coming now and as much as she controlled her breathing she wasn't sure she was going to be able to stop them.

"What do you want from me?" Bruce finally whispered. "You got shot and I caught the Joker for you. I saved your father. For you. You couldn't walk and I took you to the Watchtower. I pulled in every favor owed to me, created new medical technology from different races across the universe in the hopes that you could be healed. When the surgery didn't work I accepted that it was my fault, that I failed you, but there was nothing else I could do." His voice was increasing in volume now, the deep growl becoming a low boom as he finally allowed himself to react-or couldn't stop himself.

"Nothing else you could do?" Barb shot back. "Nothing else you could do. And yet, here I am walking. Because of Dick." In a flash he closed the distance between them grabbing her arms and holding her still, forcing her to face him.

"Dick could have killed you!" he roared into her face. "At best I knew-I knew-it would drive you insane! And at worst…"

"I deserved the chance Bruce!"

"I couldn't lose you," he whispered collapsing onto her. His hands went slack as his body crumpled around hers, and only her reflexes kept his suddenly limp weight from knocking her to the floor. Carefully, she held him as he fell to his knees, his face buried in her stomach as his hands gripped her lower back. He sat bowed, defeated in front of her. "I couldn't lose you."

Her hands buried themselves in his hair and she stared at the ceiling trying to hold on to her anger, trying to remember why she needed to walk away.

"Barbara," he whispered against her, "you don't understand. The problem has never been that I don't care, if only I didn't care. I have always cared too much. About my parents, about Alfred and the boys…and about you. The pain-when you lose someone you love the pain never goes away. People promise you you'll heal, that someday you'll wake up and it won't hurt, but they're wrong. Every day you miss them, every day you're sorry, so very sorry that you couldn't stop it. Every single day."

Her body trembled as she struggled to block him out, to block his pain out.

"When you were shot…I don't…I don't do well with death. I never have." He finally raised his head then and she was shocked to see moisture in his eyes. "I don't know what to do except to try and fix it, to ignore it, to refuse it. I could have lost you…"

"Oh god, Bruce…" she finally broke. Dropping to her knees in front of him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and sobbed into his shoulder. He held her tightly to him, the strength of his body in stark contrast to the abject terror she felt emanating from him. "I know. I know Bruce. I've always known."

It seemed like an eternity before they let each other go. They had fallen to the floor, splayed on top of each other as emotions too long pent up finally flooded the room. Barb let herself marvel at the moment; she let herself feel the thrill of being allowed to touch this magnificent-magnificent and magnificently broken-man. This man that would never be able to love because he had always loved too much.

"We can't do this Bruce," she finally whispered into the night.

He was quiet for along time before finally saying, "I know."

"We have to let each other go. I can stay out of the cave, and…and patrol…" she trailed off as her throat clogged again with emotion.

"Sshh," he soothed her. "We'll figure it out."

"I'm sorry," she told him, clutching his chest. "I'm sorry I got shot…"

"No!" he cut her off, squeezing her body to his. "No. You never apologize to me. None of this was your fault."

"So this is it?" she sighed. "We say good bye and go our separate ways?"

"Yes."

Slowly, painfully she stood; her arms seemed to wrap themselves around her middle, as if she were holding herself together. Silently he rose and pulled the mask back into place. Bruce Wayne was gone. The Batman stood once more in her apartment forever stoic and unreachable. He walked to her patio and looked back once before shooting his grapple into the night.

"Good bye Barbara."

The sound of the gun exploded around her and she stood mute as he flew away into the night. Moving slowly she closed and locked the patio door then turned and walked into her bedroom. When she came back out her eyes were dry and her mask was in place. The leather of her suit creaked as she stepped up onto the ledge of her balcony and fired her own gun. She sailed into the night capable, alert, and alone.