Forbidden

By: Hobbitgrl

Chapter 1

“Again.”

Barbara swallowed her sigh.  This is what she signed up for after all.  Bruce was a grueling instructor, but, as tired and sore as she was, Barb knew she needed it.  She’d lost a fight to the Huntress a few days ago, and Bruce wasn’t about to let it slide.  But her mind was wandering, she wasn’t focused on the sparring, and when his hand shot out it knocked her off balance. She tripped on his foot, and suddenly Barb was on the ground, pinned by Bruce. 

She sucked in her breath and hoped he passed it off as nothing.  Was it wrong how much she liked it when he pinned her?  Wrong, definitely wrong.  But that didn’t stop her from letting it happen more than she ought.

He had to know; she was twenty one and he was, well, him.  What girl wouldn’t like being pinned by the Batman?

“I don’t think you should be Batgirl anymore.”  His deep voice was a bucket of ice water.  He rolled off her and to his feet with fluid grace, but Barb stayed on the floor, poleaxed. 

“What?” Barb asked quietly after a second.

“You’re not here.  Wherever you are, whatever you’re thinking about, it isn’t this.  That can get you killed.”

“But I---”

“No.” He cut her off autocratically.  This was the part of him she hated; the part that didn’t argue, but controlled.

“I’m here,” Barb snapped.  “My mind is here.  Again.”

He looked at her from the edge of the mat, a towel in his hands, and there was no missing the glint in his eyes.  Barb knew he was going to come at her with everything.  Sinking into a fighting stance she brought her hands up.  Fine, two could play.

When he moved it was lightning slicing through the air; she had seen him move like this in battle, but never here, never with her.  As she blocked his attacks she realized how much he had been holding back.  That pissed her off.  Thought she couldn’t take it, did he?  Thought this would scare her away?

He was pushing her across the mat, keeping her on the defensive, but her anger seemed to sharpen her vision, made the world turn a little slower, and when he came at her with a high kick she made her move.  Blocking his foot, she slammed her palm into his chin.  He was surprised, obviously, and Barb pushed her advantage.  Didn’t think she could land one did he?

She was a red tornado, spinning, kicking, and punching---techniques he had shown her, but transformed by her style.  He blocked her punch, but she expected that.  She drove her left hand into his stomach, then, before he could get his breath back, swung her feet up, caught his head between them, and swung him back down to the mat.  Using her momentum, she swung around, and planted on top of him, her hand around his neck.

For a long moment the only sound was their breath sawing in and out.  Well, she realized, mostly her breath.  He seemed to have barely broke a sweat.  Typical.

“Better,” he said.  He made no move to remove her hand or push her off of him, and then he knew she hadn’t beat him.  He’d held back after all; that stung.

“You’ve been holding back with me,” she said.  She tried to keep her voice even, but irritation made the words sharper.

“Of course I have,” he said then, as easily as swatting a fly, knocked her hand off his neck, and dumped her onto the mat before standing back up.  “You think you’re ready for full speed?”

“You tell me I’m not ready, but whose treating me with kid gloves? I’m out there, fighting those creeps, and you don’t even think I can handle a real sparring match?” She was still sitting on the mat.  Her hair had come lose, and she yanked the elastic band out as she pushed to her feet.  “Did you want me to get hurt?  Wait till one of them lands a good one, and I cry all the way home?”

His face went blank, and Barbara knew he was angry.  She shouldn’t have said that; after Jason he was different---angrier, harder.  She knew the guilt he felt was overwhelming, but she was so tired of being treated like, like the girl.  Bruce was always trying to make her quit; always so quick to accuse her of not giving it her all. 

He spun on his heel and stalked back toward the computer, his silence attacking her.  Grabbing her jacket she walked over, but kept a respectable distance.

“I’m sorry Bruce,” she said softly.  “I just--”

“Go home.”  He didn’t even look at her.  He was like some beautiful, cruel, god; in the beginning was the word: his word.

“I’m not quitting,” she said softly, but with strength.  “I’m not quitting, and you’re not going to make me.”  And with that she left.

Bruce sat at the computer long after she was gone, but he wasn’t seeing anything.  He was back on the mat, pinned under a warrior with firey red hair.  She’d been beautiful when she fought back; she was always beautiful when she fought, all sleek grace and power, but this was different---more passionate maybe.  He’d been taken aback by her, not her moves.  When she’d gone on the attack part of him didn’t want to stop her; he just wanted to give her room to move.

Slamming his hand down, Bruce shot out of the chair and went to the punching bag.  She was twenty one.  His fists drilled the bag, a rhythm of violence staccatoing across the cave wall.  She was twenty one.  She was James Gordon’s daughter. 

She was beautiful.

He punched the bag harder, his breath starting to quicken.  She was eighteen.  He would not entertain this fantasy.  Maybe he did want her to quit.  It would take her out of his life; no more sparring matches, no more danger of him feeling her warm flesh beneath him.

His arms were burning as he pummeled; what was wrong with him?  When had this, attraction, started?  She was twenty one. 

God she was beautiful.

Chapter 2

Gotham had been quiet the past week.  The kind of quiet that only came before the whole city exploded.  Bruce had learned fast not to trust it; he could feel the tension vibrating in the night air.  He was on his own tonight; Barbara, thankfully, was patrolling with Tim.  It had been hell since the last night they sparred; he woke up from his micro naps, not refreshed, not finding answers, but thinking of her.  It was intolerable. 

And she’d shown up tonight in that dress.  He didn’t know where she’d been, and he told himself he didn’t care.  But she sauntered into the cave, her stiletto heels clicking on the rock, in a slinky dark green, strapless number.  Her hair had tumbled around her shoulders, and no part of her figure was left to his imagination.  She was strong, tight, and so graceful it made his teeth ache.  Tim had given her a hard time, and then she showed the slit that ran all the way up her thigh.

“See?” she had joked, “maneuverability.  I could patrol in this.”

The sound of her easy laughter had made his groin tighten, an unwanted, but not unexpected, reaction.

“Robin, Batgirl, you’re on patrol together tonight,” he’d barked.

“Robin, Batgirl,” she had teased him.  “We’re still in the cave.”

“Are you here, or would you like to go back to your party?”  He hadn’t shouted, but both she and Tim had shut up, all their humor sucked dry.

“No Batman” she answered, all mirth gone, “Robin and I will patrol.”

She was driving him crazy.  She was going to destroy him more surely and successfully than his many enemies had even dreamed.  If she were only Barbara Gordon he could flirt with her as Bruce Wayne, invite her to parties and enjoy her company, take the edge off.  But she wasn’t; she was Batgirl and she was twenty one.   He worked with her, put his life in her hands, and couldn’t risk worrying about her.  He had to trust her to take care of herself, that was the job, that was deal.  But every time they sparred, every time he felt her body under him pinned beneath his it took all of his considerable will power not to just…kiss her.

The frustration was channeling into rage; he liked rage.  He was comfortable with rage.  He was seething with controlled power when some punk tripped the alarm at Gotham National Bank.  Poor idiot.

There were five of them, and they hadn’t even finished breaking in before the Batman was on them.

The rage screamed as it found an outlet.  He felt satisfaction as a nose crunched under his fist.  He felt the ribs crack under his boot.  One of them pulled a gun on him, and Batman broke his finger disarming him.  It was Robin’s voice in his ear that dissipated the red mist covering his vision.

“zzz…tman…help…zzzzutnumbered….zzzatgirl.” 

Leaving the broken robbers for the cops, he jumped in the Batmobile and took off in the direction of their tracking signals.  The warehouse district?  Why were they there?

“Robin,” he said clearly, “I’m on my way.”

He was there in under five minutes; the people of Gotham had learned to get out of the way when the Batman was screaming down her streets.

He entered slowly, invisible in the shadows.  The warehouse was dark and empty, but there was light in the office up the stairs.  He couldn’t see Tim or Barbara, but there were at least two goons silhouetted against the glass.

Creeping stealthily up to the door, his gut clenched when he saw Tim and Barbara tied to chairs in the middle of the room.  They had both been beat up, but their masks were on.  That was good.  Barbara seemed a little more alert than Tim, but just as Bruce prepared to strike, a goon, clearly the leader in a mask, slammed his fist, with brass knuckles, into her cheek.  Blood spilled out between her lips and she moaned as she fought for consciousness.

He kicked the door open and threw a batarang into the light, plunging the room into darkness.  He had memorized the position of the three idiots and dropped them before they could even raise their weapons.  It was pitch black, but he pulled his night vision on; that’s when he saw an army start to pour into the warehouse.

“Tr---trap,” Tim whispered as he was untied.

“It’ll be alright,” Bruce told him, going to work on Barbara’s knots.  “Batgirl, can you fight?”

“ngh…” she moaned.

“He hit her pretty hard,” Tim told him, unsteady on his feet from his own injuries.

“I saw,” he replied.  “Stand back.”  Leaving Batgirl in the chair he placed explosives along the wall.

“Okay,” Bruce said, slinging Barbara’s unconscious form over his shoulder.  “Grapple ready?”

“Ready,” Tim replied. The army was beginning to move toward the office.  Bruce could hear the shuffle of their feet.

Without ado he hit the detonator, his specially made bombs blowing out, leaving them unharmed but taking away the wall.  Without having to be told Tim shot his grapple right after Bruce and the three swang away from the warehouse into the night.

“Now,” Bruce told Tim later as Batgirl, still in and out of consciousness, lay balanced between them in the Batmobile, “you can tell me what happened.”

“We were patrolling,” Tim started, “and there were these guys.  They looked suspicious, and Barb thought we should check it out cause, you know, it’s been so quiet.”

Bruce stayed quiet, eyes on the road.

“So we go in, but it was like they knew we were there.  I…I tried radioing you, I knew there were too many, but I…I guess my radio wasn’t working.  By the time I heard your reply we were already being dragged into that office.”  Tim stayed quiet, staring out the window as the scenery flew by.

Bruce remembered the rage; he had lost the edge tonight.  Too preoccupied with his feelings for Barbara.  This was why it couldn’t happen.  He became aware of Tim’s silence then; he was leaving something out.

“What else, Tim?” Bruce asked him.

“The…the things they said they were going to do to Barbara,” he said quietly.  “I didn’t know if you were coming, and there were too many, and I knew we weren’t getting out of there.”

Bruce was silent for a moment, understanding what was bothering Tim all too well.  When that thug had hit her---he couldn’t keep fighting like this.  He couldn’t afford to be so preoccupied.  But he understood why Tim was upset.  Bruce was surprised it had never occurred to him before.  That was one of the reasons he had been so hesitant to let her join the group.  She wasn’t Diana or even Dinah; she had no superpowers, and all of them, no matter how well skilled, could be defeated.  In the end, though, she had convinced him that he couldn’t make that decision for her; if she chose the life it was a risk she accepted like all the others.

“We all know what we’re signing on for,” Tim said after awhile.  “We know we’ll get beat up, maybe even die.  But that’s not all for Barbara is it?  If they capture her it’ll be a long time before they kill her.”

“It’s a risk,” Bruce told him.  He couldn’t have Tim focusing on this, so worried about what could happen that he couldn’t keep his focus.  “She knows what could happen.”

“It’s fine Tim,” Barb said, finally coming to for real.  “This isn’t the first time some idiot Neanderthal has threatened me with rape.”

“Barb,” Tim said, not letting go of her even though she was sitting up on her own now.

“Part of the job, Tim,” she told him, forcing a smile through her swelling lips and cheek.  “And really, when you think about all the shit the Scarecrow or the Joker can do to your mind, not the worst possibility.”

Bruce pulled into the Batcave and stepped out of the car.  Before Barbara or Tim knew what was happening, he reached in and lifted her out, pulling her out of Tim’s grasp and up against his chest.  He began to walk towards the examination table knowing Alfred was already on his way down to patch them all up.  It seemed they always needed patching up, and, anymore, Alfred just expected it.

“I can walk,” she said.  She had wrapped her arms around his neck for stability, and he could feel the heat of her body through her armor and his.

When he didn’t say anything, just kept walking, she settled against his chest for the short ride to the table.  Without ceremony he sat her down then reached up to take her mask off.  Ignoring her protests, he took her chin in his hands gently and examined her face.  She was going to have a black eye, a split cheek, and a swollen lip.  These weren’t injuries she could easily explain to her dad unless she convinced him she had suddenly taken up professional ice hockey.  With hardened criminals.

“Tim get up here too,” Bruce ordered.  With a small grunt of pain Tim hopped up on the table next to Barb.

“What are you gonna tell your dad?” Tim asked her.

“Is it that bad?” she asked, still caught in Bruce’s gentle grasp.

“Umm…” she thought.  What the hell could she tell her dad?  What would last long enough for her face to heal?

“Library conference!” Tim suddenly suggested.  “In Metropolis!”

“Thanks Tim!” Barb smiled back, but then stopped as her face protested any excessive movement.  “I can call him tomorrow, but I need a place to stay…”  She trailed off, her eyes boring into Bruce’s.

Barbara in his house for a week.  Barbara sleeping, eating, and showering here for an entire week.  She was his destruction.  Utter and complete destruction.

“You can stay here,” Bruce said, releasing her face and turning back toward the computer as Alfred descended the stairs.  Maybe he would get lucky and the Penguin would try to take over the city.  That would be nice and distracting.

Chapter 3

Barbara woke up the next day feeling like she’d played chicken with a train.  And lost.

She grimaced as she sat up, and then hissed as her swollen face refused to grimace.

“Son of a god damn gonnorsyphiletic whore!”

“Well good morning to you too, Miss Gordon,” Alfred greeted her over the intercom.  “Might I bring you up some breakfast and necessities for your stay?”

“Alfred!” she answered, her face suddenly matching her hair, “yes.  Yes please!”  Of course Alfred would hear her morning cursing.  Mornings.  She hated mornings.

There was a knock on her door a moment later, and Alfred entered carrying a tray with water, coffee, orange juice, and a platter of something that smelled delicious.  He also had a bag hanging off his wrist.

“Here is your breakfast,” he said setting the tray on her lap, “and here are some clothes, soap, shampoo, and toothbrush.  I apologize for failing to have acquired your own things, but if you’ll give me a list I’d be happy to pick them up from your apartment.”

“Oh thank you Alfred, I will,” Barbara said, the blush still lingering.  “May I ask what time it is?”

“It is half past two and raining.  Master Bruce went to bed a few hours ago, so you have the run of the place if you wish,” he told her.

Barbara lifted the lid off the most scrumptious breakfast she had ever seen; Alfred certainly knew how to cook.  When she had devoured it, she pushed the tray off to the side and made her first real attempt at standing up.  Sore, but not bad.  It seemed her face really was the worst of it, except for some bruised ribs along her right side.

Opening the bag she found an oversized shirt and drawstring shorts----Bruce’s?----a bar of soap, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and shampoo and conditioner.  All the necessities of life.

Forty five minutes later she was by herself in the kitchen, wet hair dampening the back of her borrowed shirt, and helping herself to another cup of coffee.  Alfred had left to gather her clothes and bath products from her apartment and she was reveling in the quiet.  She told work she had a family emergency, and her dad she had work.  She was free for five whole days from mundane responsibilities.  It felt blissful.

When Bruce entered the kitchen and saw her standing there, in one of his shirts, hair still wet, he nearly lost it.  For one intense second he saw himself striding over to her, locking her lips with his own, running his hand up under that t-shirt and…but no.  He willed the blood to leave his groin, and stood there, watching her, unable to look away, unable to move forward.

A second later Barb turned, humming a little song to herself as she brought the coffee mug up to her lips and blew across the top.  She swallowed her song when she saw him; she hid it well, but he knew he had surprised her.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning,” he replied.  His voice was deeper and rougher; he knew she would blame it on just waking up and not the desire pooling in his gut.

“Coffee?” she asked.

“Please,” he answered.  Any other day this would be impossible.  Any other day he would still be in the cave working.  But there were no pressing cases and tonight he had a ball to attend as Bruce Wayne which meant that today he woke up, and came into the kitchen for coffee and food.  Any other day he wouldn’t be seeing her freshly washed, in his clothes.

“Was your bed comfortable?” he asked.  He hadn’t asked about her room, about her sleep, or about her injuries.  He had asked about her bed.  He hoped she didn’t notice.

“Very,” she told him with a slight smile.  Her discomfort was written all over her body.  He didn’t blame her; he wasn’t easy to be with, ever.  And lately she had been angry at him, mostly because he had been short with her.  This attraction was gnawing away at his control.

“Well,” he said moving back toward the door, “I’ll be in the cave.”

Barbara was trying not to stare.  Dear God she was trying not to stare, but he was standing there in pajama pants and no shirt and as he left the kitchen she could see his perfectly formed derriere through the thin material; when he had stood in front of her she had seen more than that.

She wasn’t normally like this, and certainly not with, never with…Bruce.  It was wrong somehow; it felt, she didn’t now, incestuous.  But that only made it more appealing.  What was wrong with her?!  Sure she’d nursed a little crush for him off and on through the years; usually on when she wasn’t around him, and off when he was barking out orders and being him.  But lately, lately it seemed like she was running out of breath every time she was near him, fighting the urge to touch him, be near him, to fall to her knees and beg to have his babies.

That last one was a joke.  She hoped.

This was Bruce for chris’sakes!  It was going to be a really, really long week.

***

“Barbara you have to focus!”  It was the most he’d ever yelled at her.  She was still letting his punch get through, even though he’d shown her three times how to block it.  But he was just too fast, and while she knew what she was supposed to do, she knew what was coming, she just never seemed to get her block up in time. It was maddening and him yelling at her wasn’t helping.

“Again,” she said holding on to the shreds of her temper.  He came at her, a right hook, a left chop to the solar plexus, and a right----his fingertips stopped at her neck.  He would have incapacitated her if he had landed the blow, if he’d landed any of the blows she’d failed to block over the last hour.

“I don’t know why you think you can keep doing this job,” he snarled at her, “when you can’t even block a hit you know is coming.”

“I know is coming from someone whose been training in martial arts for at least a decade longer than me!” she screamed back, temper snapping.  “That’s why you teach me remember?!  Because I’m not as fast as you yet!”

“This is a simple move,” he growled into her face.  “We’ve been practicing it for over an hour and you still----”

“I still?  I still?!  How about you’ve been really hard to learn from lately?  I come down to practice and you insist on coming over here to help me, but you show the move once and expect it to be perfect!  And when I ask you to slow it back down you question my ability!”  She was inches from his face, her anger lightening in her eyes.  “What is wrong with you?!”

He snapped.  He lost control and snapped.  Before Barbara could block him anymore than she had a moment ago, he grabbed her face and kissed her.

All of the attraction, the lust he had fought, the sweet torture of having her in his house, constantly underfoot for the past five days, broke his fabled control.  Kissing her was like tasting something spicy and forbidden; he knew it was wrong.  He knew there would be consequences, and the all of that just made the kiss sweeter.

Barbara was confused for exactly one eighth of a second.  And then her carefully bottled desire exploded.

It wasn’t a sweet kiss.  It wasn’t tender or gentle.  It was the kiss of two people who knew it was wrong, was a very, very bad idea, but did it anyway.  Their mouths fought, their tongues stroking each other in a dueling dance designed to destroy the other.

Somehow, someway they dropped, but she couldn’t tell how.  She just knew she was laying down and he was on top of her.  The mat cushioned them as Barbara opened her legs, letting him settle down between them.

His hands traveled up her ribcage, over her sports bra, across her breasts, and then back down, pushing the bra up and revealing her to his touch.  She gasped as his calloused palms brushed over her, before he caught her nipples in between finger and thumb, gently pulling and rolling.

He left her mouth, kissing down her neck, stopping where her neck met her shoulder when she bucked underneath him.  This couldn’t be happening, she couldn’t be doing this, not with…

“Sir?  Master Bruce sir?”  The voice of Alfred was like an artic tidal wave on both of them.  As quickly as Bruce had kissed her, he rolled away, shielding her with his body while she pulled her bra back into place.

“Forgive me sir,” Alfred said, coming around the corner, “am I interrupting your session?”

“What do you need Alfred?” Bruce asked as Barbara stood up behind him.

“It’s Commissioner Gordon Sir,” Alfred stated.  “He’s been kidnapped.”

Chapter 4

The heat of her embarrassment disappeared in an instant as Barb felt her heart stutter in her chest.

“Who?” she asked.  “Where?”  She was already moving towards her costume, but behind her Bruce hadn’t moved.

“It appears that a rather large ransom note was stapled to police headquarters, Sir,” Alfred explained.  “It’s all over the news.”

Bruce strode quickly to the computer and the news flashed up on the main monitor.  The image of a huge white sheet, flapping in the wind over police headquarters dominated the monitor while “POLICE COMMISSIONER KIDNAPPED” scrolled across the bottom of the screen.  The sheet was covered in “Ha! HA! aH! hA! HaH! hAh!” a picture of her father with a grotesque smile, drawn over the middle.  The by-line said something about a ransom note being held by police, and protocols being instigated, but Barb didn’t care about any of that.  Everything on the sheet was written in red, and she knew it wasn’t ink.

“I’m going after him,” she said.

“We’ll go after him,” Bruce said quietly, but with strength.  “We need to know where he is first.”

“He’s with the Joker,” Barb replied, trying to hold on to her temper, “and the Joker’s never been that hard to find.”

“Batgirl,” Bruce started then paused, “Barbara.  We’ll find him.  Alfred, I need that note.”

“The police are flying the bat signal Sir,” Alfred told him.  “I believe you will have everything you need.”

They got dressed silently.  When she tried to buckle her belt Barb’s hands started shaking and she missed the first time.  She tried to force it, but that only made both of her hands shake harder.  She just breathed then.  Not ten minutes ago she and Bruce had been on the mat,…she concentrated on breathing.  And now her father.  The Joker had him.  Dear gods the Joker had him.  But he was alright, she told herself.  He was tough, and if the Joker meant to kill him he would be dead already.  It was just another ploy to lure the Batman.

After a moment she buckled her belt, pulled her mask on and headed toward the car, hands steady.  Bruce didn’t matter right now.  What they had done didn’t matter right now.  She would find her father.

She got in the Batmobile and sat quietly as Bruce started the car and fired out of the cave.  Normally she reveled in the chance to ride in this machine, but now it was simply a means to an end.  The silence between them was loaded but companionable.  They couldn’t not talk about what had happened, and her father took priority. 

They made the precinct in record time, but it felt like an eternity to Barb.  Every second they spent searching for her father the Joker had him; was he being poisoned?  Gassed?  Tortured? 

“We will find him.”  Bruce’s voice rumbled in the quiet of the vehicle as he parked, the car hidden in an  alley a block away from the station.

“I know,” she replied quietly. She didn’t doubt they would find her father, not for an instant.  But even the Batman couldn’t assure her they would find him in time.

When they landed on the roof of the police station they were only met by Detective Bullock. 

“I need that note,” Batman said immediately.

“Here it is,” Bullock told him, handing the note over.  “It’s addressed to you.  Guess he thought the station is your P.O. Box.”

Batman stayed quiet as he quickly scanned the note, then carefully put it away in his belt.  The note read:

Dearest Batsy,

Knock, Knock

Who’s there?

The Fair!

The Fair who?

The Fair isn’t!!!

“I’ll take care of it.”  Turning he shot his grapple and was off the roof in an instant.  Barb was still processing, and Bullock grabbed her arm before she shot her own.

“Commissioner Gordon’s the best man in this town,” Bullock told her.  “We need you guys to bring him home safe and whole.”

“I promise.”  If only he knew how much she meant that promise.  Stepping away from him she followed the Batman into the night.

Batman took off as soon as she got in the car, but didn’t head back towards the cave.

“Where are you going?” Barb asked him.

“The fair grounds,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because that’s where the Joker has Jim Gordon.”

“How?  Oh, of course, 1955, Gotham World Fair,” Barb said.  “What’s the plan then?”

“I need to know if you’re focused, if you can stay sharp while we do this,” he said.

“Why do you do that?” she asked him shortly.  “Why do you only question my ability?  My focus?  Never Dick.  Never Tim.  Only me.”

He was quiet so long, she thought he wasn’t going to answer her.

“I raised them.  I know how their minds work.  Yours is…different.”

It took Barb a long ten seconds to gather her courage, but she knew it had to be said.  It had to be said before he buried her and pushed her out like he did everyone else.

“We will talk after we save my father.  We will talk about what happened.  But don’t…don’t blame me for it.”

He said nothing, just stared ahead as the Batmobile barreled through the gates of the 1955 World Fair grounds.  They parked the car at the front of the park, safe and out of sight, before making their way through the shadows, constantly scanning for any hint, any clue.

They saw it at the same time.  Fresh prints headed into a decrepit building with a broken neon robot hanging above the entrance.  They approached slowly, carefully, listening for any sound, searching for any sign of life, but as soon as Batman’s crossed the threshold the Joker’s trap was sprung.

“Move!” he shouted, but neither of them had a chance.  Steel bars shot up from the ground, meeting and locking with bars extending from the top of the doorway, as bars in front of Batman shot up into the ceiling, trapping them.

Without needing to be told, she immediately went to work on the walls just inside the door, biting back a cry of pain when she punched the seemingly old wood.  Just behind the original paneling, carefully concealed, was steel plating.

“Any ideas?” she asked.  She hoped she hid the desperation.

“Hope he wants to play with  us for awhile,” Bruce replied.

“That’s why we call you the cheerful one,” Barb muttered under her breath as spotlights lit up and the Joker’s laugh boomed over the amusement park.

“Oh Batsy and Batsygirl!  It’s a twofer and I do love a double feature!”  His maniacal cackle set her teeth on edge as she tried to see past the spotlights.

“Remember old chap, I told you it wasn’t fair or the fair!”  Electricity shot through the metal bars and it was all Barb could do not to scream.  The Joker kept laughing over the loud speakers as their bodies spasmed; it was while she was fighting for consciousness that the gas covered her before she could get her mask on.  Her last thought, as darkness took her, was a plea for her father to be safe.

Chapter 5

She and Bruce were tied back to back with their hands in front.  Steel chains bound their bodies together, and they dangled in what appeared to be a meat locker.  Even through the armor and padding of her costume, Barb could feel the cold numbing her extremities.  She knew immediately Bruce was already conscious, and she winced at the migraine left behind by the gas.

“Figured our way out yet?” she asked him over her shoulder.

“Working on it,” he replied softly.  “Guards at the door in front of you watching us, so be careful what you do.”

“Well,” she said as she tallied the score.  Bruce could get them out of this; she knew it like she knew the sun would come up every day.  But his hands were tied (figuratively) and if the guard saw the escape as it happened it was all over.  They needed a head start, and that meant running through that open door twenty feet in front her before anyone could shut it.  “They’ve left the door open.  About twenty feet, my side.”

“I heard their voices,” he said.  “They’ll shut us in as soon as we move.”

“So we need a distraction.”

“Can you reach your flash bombs?”

Barb shook her head, biting her lip to keep from grinning.  Poor Bruce--he was probably going to be as distracted by her distraction as anyone watching them.

“I want you to tell me you love me!” Barb screamed in her most pathetic voice.  She felt him stiffen against her, and whispered over her shoulder, “keep working!” 

Thugs loved a good show.  If he thought the Batman and Batgirl were having a lover’s quarrel well, at worst Batgirl was betting he would forget to pay attention to their hands and at best he would seek distance from her truly awful whining.

“I thought I meant something to you!  I thought we had something!  I knew we’ve been drifting, I *sob* could feel it, but why…why can‘t you just say it!”  Barb faked a wail.  She’d never done this sort of a thing before, but she hoped experience with a few very dramatic friends would see her through.

“Keep it down in there!” the guard shouted from the door.  “God damn dames.”

“If we’re gonna die I just want to know!” she shouted back.  “I just want to hear it once!” 

She sobbed again and nudged Bruce’s foot with hers when the guard moved away from the door with an annoyed glance.  Looked like it was at best.

They were free falling for an instant before both landed silently; in another heartbeat the chains were sliding free and Bruce was in front of her cutting her hands free.  He gave her a smirk before spinning on his heel and slipping out the door, choking out the guard before he even turned around.

“Nice distraction,” he whispered as he took inventory of their situation.

“Dudes always believe the default mode of all girls is crazy,” Barb replied.  “You taught us to make us of any weapon at hand.”

He said nothing, but Barb could have sworn he was impressed.

They slipped down the hallway and found her father, beaten half to death and tied to a chair in the middle of the warehouse floor.  How had they ended up in a warehouse with a meat locker Barb wondered, but didn’t have time to muse through it.  Bruce signaled for her to go high, and she slipped into the shadows, making her way silently up into the rafters.

A batarang flew out of the darkness and expertly cut the rope tying Jim Gordon to his chair.  A spotlight from the other side of the building lit up and began destroying the shadows in its search for the Batman.

“Batsy you got free!”  The Joker cried as he strode slowly up to Gordon.  The spotlight stopped its search, landing on the Joker and holding still as he mosied across the floor. “I expected nothing less, of course.”

Batman stepped out of the dark, his fist circling the Joker’s neck, stopping him from getting any closer to Gordon.

“Then what did you expect?” he growled.

“Why, for you to die!  What else?”  Joker’s laugh filled the cavernous room as Barb felt movement below her.  She could see at least fifty men circling Batman.  Now that the spotlight had him, they attacked, and he couldn’t escape the light.  But because he was in the light he couldn’t see all the attacks coming at him from the dark.

Barb saw her father sitting still in the chair, but she didn’t hesitate.  If Bruce died her father died; she was too far away.  She leapt across the rafters quickly and silently, heading inexorably for the spot.  She didn’t know why Bruce hadn’t thrown a batarang, maybe he didn’t have time, maybe he was worried about the Joker getting away, but Barb was on it.  When she had a clear shot she threw her own, the projectile breaking the bulb and raining glass on the empty floor before.

The sudden darkness was immediately broken by muzzle fire as the thug at the spot light opened fire where she had been a moment before.  Trusting Bruce to handle things below she jumped lightly across the beams before swinging down behind the spot and taking the dude out with a quick blow to the neck.  She relieved him of his gun and left him secured to the catwalk before dropping down to the fight below.

There were maybe twenty or twenty five left, and Bruce knocked two more out as she joined the fight.  With the two of them and the advantage of darkness it wasn’t even a contest.

“Go,” Barb told him, “take care of Joker.  I got this.”  She roundhouse kicked the hoodlum behind her, and swung around with a punch to another.  The rest were disoriented in the near blackness, and untrained in anything but shooting a gun.   It wasn’t even a challenge.

She left the pile of groaning and unconscious thugs, and ran to her father, helping him up out of the chair.

“Da---Commissioner!” she corrected.  “Commissioner Gordon are you okay?”  She could not afford slips like that.

“I’m…I’m alive,” he whispered.  He was groggy, whether from drugs or his injuries she couldn’t be sure.  Without wasting another moment she contacted Alfred with her cowl mike.

“Do you have a fix on our location?” she asked.

“I do young miss,” Alfred’s voice said into her ear.

“Send an ambulance and police right away,” she told him.

“They are en route now,” he replied.  “Master Bruce has been in contact.”

“Of course he has,” Barb said with a small smile.  When was he not ten steps ahead of everyone else?  No doubt he had managed to turn on his homing device while they were both being electrocuted.

“Thank you,” Gordon told her as she led him to the door she spotted earlier.  She could hear the sirens in the distance now.  “Your voice is familiar.”

Barbara Gordon was not having a good night.

“The authorities are on their way sir.  I’ll keep an eye on you.”  She said it quickly and vanished back into the shadows.

Batman appeared a short time later with a very broken Joker in tow; together they climbed up to the roof as the police loaded the Joker into the prison transport and Gordon into the ambulance.

“Jim will be fine,” Bruce said after awhile.

“He’s a strong man,” Barb agreed. 

The rumble of the Batmobile echoed in the alley as it honed in on their location.

“That was a good distraction,” Bruce said when they got in.

“Batman…” Barb began then trailed off.

“What----happened earlier will never happen again,” Bruce said softly into the darkness.  “It shouldn’t have happened, and I take full responsibility.” His tone brooked no argument, but Barb thought she heard a sort of sadness.  Maybe she imagined it.

“I don’t----” she started, but was interrupted.

“It puts us at risk,” he cut in.  “It’s a distraction, and I will never let it happen again.”

“I believe you,” she finally said.

They said nothing else as the Batmobile roared through the night.

Chapter 6

Barb raced to the hospital. She told the cops that she’d seen her father’s rescue on T.V. and had left before they could call her.  No one questioned how she managed to get to the hospital so quickly when the news crew had only been filming for about fifteen minutes.

Her father was stable; he was a strong man, and the Joker hadn’t gassed him.  Barbara found herself thanking the universe for the little things.  When he woke up in the hospital bed he found Barb asleep in the chair next to him, but at his movement she jerked upright in her seat.

“Dad!” she screamed a little too loudly.

“Barb,” he croaked.  She grabbed his hand, holding it in her own on the bed, and collected herself.

“Dad,” she said softer this time, “oh Dad I’m so glad!  How did this happen?  How did the Joker get you?  Are you okay?  Where do you hurt?  What can I do?”

“Slow,” he paused for a breath, “down Barb.  It’s okay.  I’m okay.”  Talking seemed to tax him, and he laid his head back down on the pillow.  His breathing evened out as he fell back asleep.  Barb brushed his hair back with one hand, still holding tight to his with her other.

“I’ve got you Dad,” she whispered.  “I’ve got you.”

Barbara finally headed home around two o’clock the next afternoon. She had slept some in the severely uncomfortable hospital chair, but her dad had railroaded her into leaving.

“You’re exhausted Barb, and I’m just fine,” he had told her.

“I’m not leaving you here by yourself!” she argued back.  He pointed to the mess of cops behind her.

“Do I look like I’m by myself?” he questioned.  “Go home.  Shower.  Get some sleep tonight, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Twenty one and she still couldn’t argue with her dad.  You would think all of this time with Bruce would have toughened me up, she thought.  Oh god, Bruce.  Had they really?  Had she kissed him?  Had he--dear heaven, he had touched, she had…she had kissed the Batman!  How had this happened?  It was not her fault.  It was so, completely not her fault.  He kissed her.  She distinctly remembered that he kissed her.  Sure, maybe she wanted to spar a little more often lately.  Maybe, she had let herself get pinned on occasion, but she had not been any different towards him than she ever was!  He kissed her!

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod,” Barb mumbled to herself as she got in her car.  “How am I going to go on patrol with that man?  Why did I let him kiss me?  Why did I let him stop.”

Barb’s cheeks flushed at that; he had been a damn fine kisser.  Had she expected anything else?  But the sheer heat of his body, they way he felt cradled between her legs.  His hands--who know his hands would feel like that?  She hadn’t really had time to dwell on it.  First there had been her dad, and then the hospital and now…

*Beep Beep*

As if summoned by her thoughts, her communicator beeped, drawing her attention back to the reality.

“Yes?” Barb answered.

“Barb! We’ve got something!” Tim’s voice yelled into her car.

“Whoa,” Barb said.  “You’ve got what?”

“A lead,” Tim said impatiently.  “We’ve got a lead.  A lead on how the Joker knew when to nab your dad.”

“He didn’t just break in?” Barb asked.

“No, he got your dad at the police station.  Bruce knew your dad was never home before ten, and figured something must have happened for the Commissioner of police to get kidnapped from the middle of his building but--”

“Tim,” Barb cut in. “Are you saying somebody in the police station, somebody with access to my dad gave him to the Joker?”

“Yeah and we think we know who,” Tim answered.  His only reply was silence as Barb’s tires screeched in a u-turn.

“I’ve got to get back to the hospital,” she told him.

“No wait!”

“Tim,” she said shortly, “Dad is surrounded by cops right now.  Anyone of them could be the guy!”

“Bruce has the guy!” Tim shouted. 

“What?  Why didn’t you say that in the first place!”

“Well because Bruce doesn’t have him yet,” Tim amended, “but he knows who it is and we’re keeping an eye on him.  He’s nowhere near your dad.”

“Who the hell is it?” Barb’s patience was running thin.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Tim teased, “come over and I’ll show you.”

“Sweet Mary, Dick was never this annoying,” Barb sighed.

“That’s cause he did whatever you said,” Tim mocked her.  “Robin out.”

The communicator beeped once, signaling the end of connection, but Barb’s mind was already on other things.  Somebody inside the police department had turned her father over to the Joker.  Barb knew the department was corrupt--she had seen enough of it first hand growing up--but to help the Joker get his hands on anybody was unfathomable. 

It was just her, Tim, and Bruce on this one.  Dick was in Russia which was just as well.  Their short-lived whatever-you-call-it was still enough of something that her slight “hand to hand” session with Bruce would piss Dick off.  It wasn’t like Dick had any right to be jealous but, a girl didn’t sleep with the son and then make out with the father without any consequences.

How had her life turned into this?  How had she kissed Bruce?  Bruce kissed her.  It was not her fault.  She defied any girl who was kissed by Bruce Wayne to keep her pants on.  So not her fault.

She pulled into the secret entrance to the cave far quicker it seemed than ever before.  Barb was exhausted, terrified for her father, and horrified to look at Bruce.  He said it would never happen again, but did he really mean it?  And what if it didn’t?  What if all she ever got as that one, short, interrupted time? 

In the “not fair” column that ranked up there with being turned into Medusa for being seduced by a God.

Thankfully it was only Tim at the console when Barb arrived.  He wasn’t suited up in Robin gear, and, if they weren’t in the Batcave, he would have looked like any other teenage boy on the street. 

“What have we got Tim?” Barb asked as she walked up.

“Recognize this guy?” Tim asked her.  On the monitor was the picture of an Officer Lawrence Lewicki.  Barb had a faint memory of the guy, but she hadn’t seen him in years. 

“That’s the guy that set up my dad?” she asked incredulously.  “He’s helping the Joker?”

“Yup,” Tim told her.  “He lured the Commissioner down to the garage, and let the Joker in.  Then he hung the sheet from the building--all without being seen.  Pretty impressive for somebody whose been an Officer for thirty years and failed his detective exam eight times.”

“I have a vague memory of Larry, but nothing that foreshadowed this,” Barb said softly.  “Maybe he had help?  Maybe he was coerced?  Drugged?  What does Bruce think?”

“Bruce is off doing some Bruce Wayne thing,” Tim told her, “but he’s sure this is the guy and that he worked alone.  Bruce thinks he just hit a wall or something.”

“Bruce would never not figure out the motive,” Barb contradicted.

“I know,” Tim said, “but he isn’t telling me.  He’s got his Batman face on.  This is the guy, and I’m just supposed to follow orders.”

“Which didn’t include calling Barbara.”  Barb felt her spine stiffen and tingle as Bruce’s deep voice echoed across the cave.  That voice had always mesmerized her, but now it intoxicated her.  Even the displeasure she heard only made it more arousing.

She had to get a grip on herself.

“It’s Barb’s dad,” Tim defended himself.  “I thought she ought to know.”

“Barbara hasn’t slept  in two days, and the information could have waited until tonight,” Bruce contradicted.

“Barb is just fine,” she interjected.  Stupid, pushy, autocratic, hot, hot man.  What was wrong with her?!

“I’d rather make sure my dad is safe than sleep,” she said after collecting her thoughts.  Bruce’s gaze bored into her own; it was like he could see exactly what she was thinking.  Exactly what she was feeling.

“Fine,” he finally said after a second of evaluating her.  “Lewicki didn’t decide to help the Joker randomly.  Something happened to make him snap, or someone finally offered him a deal worth taking.  We won’t know anymore without surveillance and Tim can take the afternoon shift.  Go sleep.”

“Fine.”  Barb hoped she didn’t sound petulant.  She was tired, but she’d be god damned before she let him think she liked taking orders.

She had barely entered the study outside the cave entrance into the manor, when she was suddenly grabbed and thrown up against the bookcase.

“Do we have a problem?” Bruce growled into her face.

Barb was stuck.  He had pinned her body between his own and the wall; there was less than a foot between them, and Barbara felt trapped.  He was a gravitational force that commanded her.  He caged her head between his arms as he leaned in, his eyes a cold artic that demanded obedience.

“Do we have a problem” he said again.  His voice was lower, lower even than when he had the cowl on.

“What problem?” Barb finally pushed out.  Her voice was breathy, weak.  She couldn’t seem to slow her pulse.

“I don’t accept attitude, and I don’t accept argument,” he stated.  “When I tell you to do something I expect you to do it.  Is that no longer possible?”

It was the most he’d ever said to her at once.  And this was the closest she’d been to him since, well, since the last time.  But he was in a suit now, his Bruce Wayne costume in place.  Barb found it offensive; she wanted to punch him, kick him, turn him back into the Batman.

Instead she kissed him.

Barb didn’t know where she found the courage, or what she was thinking.  In retrospect, she suspected she wasn’t thinking at all.  Instead all she knew was that he was close to her again and she needed to touch him, to feel him touch her.  She needed him to close the space between them, and to push his body up against hers.  He had the honed reflexes of a ninja, but he didn’t see that kiss coming.

Barb thrust her lips to his, and immediately grabbed his head with her hands.  She dug her fingers into his hair, as she worked his lips apart, slipping her tongue between them.  With the first caress of his mouth, he was on her.

His body slammed into hers, as his hands grabbed the back of her thighs and lifted, spreading her legs and wrapping them around his hips.  She was suspended between the wall and his body, held there by his rock hard strength.  Her legs seemed to squeeze his hips of their own volition as he let go of her legs and ran his hands up her torso.  Barb broke the kiss and arched into him as he brushed the sides of her breast, giving him her neck and moaning when he began to nibble along the tender skin.

Her hips were thrusting, rubbing against his, and she felt him, his pulse beating between her legs.  He dropped his hands and ran them back up, pushing the shirt out of the way as he continued to attack her neck.  When his fingers closed on her nipples, it was all Barb could do not to scream the manor down.

“Bruce,” she panted.  She needed more, was desperate for more.  One of his hands slipped down, tracing her stomach down to her pants, the zipper caught between their bodies.  He pulled back his torso just enough to slip his hand between her jeans and her skin.  Barb felt her body clench around him as he gingerly began exploring her. 

His finger found her clit at the same time his mouth found her nipple and she exploded.  Her nerves were on fire, one long sparking chain of arousal.  She was rubbing against him, back arched into his mouth, the bookshelves digging into her shoulder blades as she tried to expose more of her body to him.  One hand shot out and grabbed a shelf to steady herself while the other latched onto his hair.  With her legs she tilted her hips up further, giving his fingers clearer access.

She was close; she was so close, and just before she came he released her nipple, and recaptured her mouth with his.  As his fingers circled, rubbing until she was mad with pleasure she exploded around him and screamed into the kiss.  At the height of her climax her body bucked, and her hand pulled the shelf down she had been gripping.

As her arm gave way, she pulled herself out of her precarious position between Bruce and the wall.  He tried to catch her, but was trapped in her legs and soon both of them, and a large number of books and shelves crashed into the floor.  She lay there, dazed for a second, her body still wrapped around Bruce’s when Alfred’s voice carried up the stairs.

“Master Bruce?” he called.  “Master Bruce is everything quite alright?”

“Yes Alfred,” Bruce returned, his voice strained.  “I’m fine.”

He pushed away from her and stood up, then reached down, grabbed her arms and yanked her up.  Quickly without any ado he righted her shirt, rebuttoned her pants, and turned away from her.

“Alfred I’ve made a mess in the study, would you please show Miss Gordon to the guest room?”  Bruce called.

Barbara felt the heat in her body disappear as he coldly, and without a backward glance, left her standing alone amidst the pile of books.

“Please Miss Gordon,” Alfred said as he came around the corner, “follow me.”

Chapter 7

Barb slept fitfully for a few hours, but when she finally got up she didn’t feel it.  Her dark red hair was tangled, and she had lost her glasses somewhere in the cave.  The cave, the very, very, very last place on Earth she wanted to be right now.  Bruce was in the cave. 

She had kissed him this time, there was no doubt about that, but he had walked away.  After what they had done and he had just walked away like nothing happened.  That made one thing easier; she would never, ever let him kiss her again.  And by let him, she meant lose control and throw herself at him like a hussy. 

“Maybe if I just pretend it never happened,” Barb mumbled as she pushed her tired body up out of bed.  But she knew that wouldn’t work.  All she’d seen as she lay there trying to fall asleep had been Bruce’s eyes as he’d reached between them, unbuttoning her pants.  Her legs could still feel the strength of his body caught between her own.

She peeked in the shower just in case and there!  Her shower products were still there.  But, she realized, she hadn’t actually gone home yet.  She’d gone from the cave to her father, to the hospital, back here.  How had she not been home?

“Aah,” Barb moaned as the hot water hit her chest.  She turned, tipping her head back and reveled as her muscles relaxed in the spray.  She stayed in until steam made the air hazy and the heat made her dizzy.  She found some clean underwear in the clothes she had left here, and felt rejuvenated as she headed down to the cave in a pair of worn jeans, a “comma sutra” t-shirt and wet red hair.  When she walked down she found only Bruce at the computer; there was no sign or sound of Tim.

“Where’s Tim?” she asked, trying to sound light.  Nothing new here, nothing weird she told herself.

“I sent him home,” Bruce answered without looking at her.  Bruce felt his body harden immediately as Barb walked up onto the platform.  The mint smell of her shampoo teased his nostrils, and memories of earlier taunted him.  Her body wrapped around his, her taste in his mouth.  What they hadn’t finished had left him surlier than usual and fighting an erection every time his mind replayed the sound of Barbara’s moans.  He would not give into this.  It was wrong for both of them.

“Why did you send Tim home?” Barb asked.  He could hear the forced lightness in her voice.  She was trying to act like nothing had happened, like nothing had changed, but he knew that wasn’t possible.  Perhaps, if they stopped now, if nothing ever happened again they might, some day, return to a professional relationship.  The idea of never tasting her again made his gut clench; it was a reaction Bruce refused to acknowledge.

“We don’t need him tonight, and Lawrence is your case.”

“Thank you,” she said behind him.  He kept his eyes glued to the monitor.  “Thank you I--”  She didn’t finish her sentence and Bruce gave her no encouragement to.  His face showed no emotion as she turned and headed to the closet with her costume. 

His back teeth were grinding each other in time with the tick in his jaw.  It felt like his body wasn’t his own; as if, at any moment, if he just let go he would be on her and they would finish what they started in the study.  He heard the closet door open; while his eyes stayed on the monitor he stopped seeing the screen.  He saw her peeling that t-shirt over her head revealing her tight stomach, the full breasts cupped in that functional satin bra.  Nothing fancy for Barb no, she wore basic white, satin, underwire.  The sort of clothes that made him want to drive her insane with need.  To beg him as she panted with pleasure.  The vision was so intense that he was half way out of his chair before he realized what he was doing.  He was so aroused it was painful and he knew, if anyone saw him right then, there would no question of what he was feeling.

Wrenching his mind away from visions of Barb naked and wrapped around him as he rode her, Bruce walked to his own room, ripping his shirt off and willing the blood to flow out of his crotch.  He pulled the tights on, adjusting himself into a slightly less painful position before putting the Kevlar on, then his top.  Buckling the belt, he attached the cape, pulled the cowl over his face and stormed out of the room.  Barb was waiting for him, her own outfit accentuating her strength, her curves pushing against the bat symbol on her chest.

“Get in,” he growled as he stormed up to the car.  It was going to be a long night.

Office Lawrence Lewicki never stood a chance.  As he let himself into his tenth floor apartment, he hummed a tuneless song, set his groceries on the table and dropped his keys beside the bag.  He was in street clothes, a man past his prime with sagging jowls, and the beginnings of a beer gut.  His back was aching, but he still pulled the gun smoothly out of the holster under his arm as he spun around.

“What do you want,” Lewicki said into the darkness.

“Office Lewicki,” a voice growled from the shadows.  “Why are you helping the Joker.”

“The Bat comes wondering about the Joker and me,” Lewicki sneered, “I’m almost touched.”

He never had a chance to pull the trigger.  One second he was talking into the darkness and the next, the gun was knocked out of his hand as a strong forearm pinned him to the wall, closing off his windpipe.

“I’ll ask one more time,” the Batman snarled, “and don’t lie to me.  What is your relationship to the Joker.”

“No--nothing,” Lewicki stammered through the hold.  He wasn’t scared.  He was too old and too grizzled for that, but he couldn’t breathe and his heart wasn’t as strong as it used to be.  “The--the Joker…he’s got my kid.”

Batman let up on his hold so abruptly that Lewicki fell to his knees, holding his bruised neck.

“Where?”

“I don’t know,” Lewicki told him.  “He sent me a picture of her tied up in some room and said I help him get Gordon or she lives a long, painful death.  The Joker, he didn’t promise to kill her.  He promised to hurt her.  What choice I got?”

“There’s always a choice,” Batman said, already turning away.  “The Joker would never give you your daughter back.  You knew that.”

Lewicki pushed himself up to one knee, when another hand shot out and strong fingers wrapped around his already sore neck.  A smaller Bat, a female stood in front of him, but her grip showed she wasn’t weak.

“You will turn in your badge tomorrow,” she said softly into his face, “or I will do it for you.  Are we clear?”

Lewicki was silent for a moment, sizing her up, but her grip tightened, cutting off his airway again and she held it long enough that he began pulling on her hand, trying to break free.

“Are we clear?” she asked again, barely letting up enough for him to breathe.

“Yes,” he whispered.  She threw him into the wall, knocking him on his ass.  By the time he stopped seeing stars, he was alone.

Chapter 8

She was…distracting.  He had done more than kiss her now.  He wanted to do more than kiss her; much more than he wanted to admit certainly.  His attention was on the missing girl.  They’d been canvassing the street, looking for information on where the Joker might have hid her.  There’d been no sign of her at the warehouse and a trip to Arkham hadn’t helped.

“Where’s the girl?” Batman rumbled through the intercom. 

“Girl?  She’s right there behind you!?” the Joker had cackled back.

“Where’s Lewicki’s daughter?  Where is she?”  Batman knew it was futile before they came, but he had to try.  This wasn’t the girl’s fault.  He still hadn’t figured out the motivation; someone else was pulling the Joker’s strings, and this girl was caught in the crossfire. 

“Little Batsy foo foo flapping through the city, snapping up the bad guys and boppin’ em on the head!” the Joker sang.  Batman watched him for another second, the insane cackling song flowing over him, then turned and stormed out without a backward glance.

“Batgirl,” Joker had called after them.  “Little bitty Batgirl when do you become a Bat Woman?  Can I help?!”  Barb had kept walking; she didn’t even pause as they left, but Bruce could see her spine stiffen as the Joker shot a few last lewd remarks.  She said nothing as they got back in the car, but Bruce’s temper was close to snapping.

The Joker had said worse, had definitely done worse, but his insinuations, his threats to Barb, gave Bruce the urge to crush his windpipe.  These feelings could kill them both if he didn’t get a better handle on them.  And now, a whole night’s work done, and nothing on the girl.  There wasn’t even a whisper on the street of what might be going down.  It was like she had vanished.  Or had never existed.

“Come on,” Batman growled, turning away from the thug he had been dangling off a rooftop.  Barb followed without question, and he was thankful for that.  The gunshot shattered the relative quiet of the night.

“Ugh,” Barb grunted and slammed forward.

“Batgirl!” he roared quickly assessing the threat.  They were surrounded.  They weren’t Rha’s men; he would recognize that, but they were well trained.  There were at least ten, no more in the shadows, fifteen?  Twenty?  And they’d shot Barb straight off.  She was moving, pushing herself back up, but she looked like she hurt.

“Are you alright?” he asked softly.

“I’ll live,” she answered.  He could hear the pain in her voice.  “The vest stopped the bullet, but this is definitely going to leave a mark.”  She groaned a little bit as she pushed herself to her feet.

“We only want the Batman,” one of the faceless men said.

“Why?” Bruce answered.

“I don’t ask why,” the same voice replied, and then they were on them.

Batgirl and the Batman fought back to back, but it seemed like every goon they took down was replaced by three more.  She and Bruce changed tactics from defense to escape, a club caught Barb in the side.  She felt her ribs crack and struggled to draw breath.  Her foot shot out and dropped the one that hit her, but then another one brought a club down on her back dropping her to her knees.  She looked over as she fought and saw Bruce wasn’t faring much better.

Barb fought her way back over to him as the men worked to separate them, but she knew they couldn’t last forever.  Not against odds like these.  Bruce threw smoke bombs, disorienting the mob, grabbed her around the waste, and threw them both off the roof.  Barb twisted around and clung to him as he shot his grapple onto a nearby building.  They swung onto a clear roof but kept moving.

Her side was a throbbing mess, and she could see the blood dripping onto Bruce’s chest from his face, but neither slowed down.  They leapt from the building they were on to the next one, and Barb heard the Batmobile echo in an alley nearby.  Not giving her the chance to use her own grapple, Bruce grabbed her again and shot his grapple; he swung off the roof into the alley where the Batmobile waited, practically threw her in and wailed out of the alley.

Looking over her shoulder, Barb saw the weird ninja men fill the alley where they had been only a moment before.

“Who were those people?” Barb asked after a long silence.

Bruce didn’t answer.  She wasn’t surprised.

“This is bigger than I thought,” he finally told her.  “You okay?’

Barb felt uncomfortable with his tone of voice.  He sounded worried, not I’m your boss and don’t want you to die so just checking in, but actually worried.

“I’m fine,” Barb answered levelly.  “I probably have some cracked ribs, but I’m fine.”

“Alfred probably knows of a tea that would help.”

He was being nice to her, and it made her intensely uncomfortable.

For Bruce’s part, he couldn’t seem to shake that moment when Barb went down.  What if the armor hadn’t held?  What if she hadn’t put it on?  They needed to be more careful, better prepared for an ambush.  Somebody was clearly out to get them, and he was busy being infatuated with his partner.

“Sir?” Alfred’s voice cut into the quiet of the Batmobile.

“Go ahead,” Bruce answered.

“I’m afraid the Joker has escape Arkham again,” Alfred told him, a resigned note in his voice.

“How?” Bruce growled, his frustration obvious.

“It appears it was an inside job, Sir,” Alfred answered him.

“We’re on our way back to the cave,” was Bruce’s answer.

“Do you think the Joker will go back to the girl?” Barb asked after a minute.

“There is no girl,” Bruce said.

“What?  What do you mean--”

“There is no girl,” he cut her off.  “There never was.  Lewicki lied and he hasn’t been back to his apartment all night.”

“How do you know?” she asked him.

“Because I put a camera in it.”

Barb was silent at that, staring out the window at the passing scenery.

“Barbara,” he said after awhile.  “Whatever, happened, between us…earlier…”

“It’s okay Bruce,” she cut in coldly.  “I’m a big girl.  I get it.”

“I’m trying to apolo--”

“I don’t need you to apologize,” Barb interrupted.  “I don’t need you to explain it away or coddle me.  And I absolutely don’t need you to tell me it won’t happen again.  I get it.  Jackass.”  That last was said so softly he knew he wasn‘t supposed to hear it, but he did.

He said nothing else as they roared through the secret entrance.  He wasn’t trying to be an ass.  He needed to be able to work with her, but she was being difficult.  He shouldn’t have kissed her.  She shouldn’t have kissed him. What happened in the study--that never should have happened.  But this attitude, her attitude wasn’t helping anything.

“Let’s get you looked at,” he told her as they got out of the car.

“Alfred will take care of me,” she tossed back over her shoulder.  The warmth he normally felt in her presence was gone.  The charisma that was uniquely hers, so different from Dick or even Tim.  Fighting alongside her usually brought a sort of enjoyment, but now he could fell the displeasure radiating out of her.

Bruce stormed over to the computer and went to work on Lewicki.  He had missed something and Lewicki was the key.  Lewicki didn’t have a daughter; there was no missing girl.  He, or someone using him as a patsy, broke the Joker out of Arkham.  What was he missing?

“Oh dear,” Alfred said behind him.  Looking over his shoulder Bruce saw Barb’s side mottled with bruising. 

“I believe you have cracked some ribs,” Alfred told her.

“It happens,” Barb answered him.  “Let’s just get me patched up so I can go home tonight.”

Bruce tuned out the rest of their conversation, trying to figure out connection to Lewicki. 

“Sir?  Sir,” Alfred’s insistent voice broke his musings.

“What is it Alfred?”

“I believe you are in need of my ministrations as well,” Alfred told him.

Grudgingly Bruce walked over to the table and let Alfred evaluate his injuries.

“If I might be so bold Sir,” Alfred began.

“Go ahead Alfred,” Bruce said with a sigh.

“Miss Gordon is currently changing clothes and I believe I could be needed upstairs for awhile.”

“Alfred!” Bruce nearly choked on his own surprise.

“You’re very quick Master Bruce,” Alfred told him, “but even you couldn’t completely shield Miss Gordon the other night.”

“Leave it alone, Alfred,” Bruce said softly.

“Very well Master Bruce,” Alfred said, finishing up.  “But I have to tell you, I quite like the idea.”

And with that the butler turned and walked out of the cave, back upstairs.

Chapter 9

Barb walked out of the room back into the cave and bounced off of Bruce’s bare chest.

“I’m sorry!” she said quickly, flummoxed by being this close to him.  Even with everything that had happened, Barb could count the number of times she had been near Bruce’s bare chest on one hand.  It still did something untoward to her body when she saw the scarred skin and rock hard muscles covered in a fine lair of black hair.

Bruce was just standing there looking at her, as she stared at him.  The raw lust in her eyes was obvious, but so was her embarrassment at having touched him.  He could feel himself hardening from just that one slight, accidental touch.  He could smell her hair, and wanted to rip that silly t-shirt off of her so bad his hands were already reaching for her before he could stop himself.

Barbara looked up at him, her big blue eyes captured in her glasses as his hands slowly, inexorably moved from his side to her hips.  He reached one hand up and took her glasses off, folding them and putting them down on the nearest surface.  He had his uniform bottom on, but no belt and no shirt.  His chest tingled waiting for her touch to set it on fire.  His mouth was lowering, his eyes never breaking contact, lowering towards hers.

He had more control than this.  What was he doing?

Dropping his hands he spun away, tearing his gaze from hers, but her warm hands latched onto him, keeping him from leaving.

“Bruce,” she whispered into his back.  “This, whatever it is, it affects you too.”

All of him was wound so tight he thought he was going to burst if he didn’t find some release soon.  How had he let it get this far?

“What,” she paused, he could feel the heat of her forehead where it pressed into his bare back so gently as if she were afraid to touch him.  “What if we just gave ourselves tonight?”

His blood slammed into his groin, his muscles twitched as she slid her hands around from behind him, laying her palms flat on his abdomen.

“Just tonight?” she whispered again.  What if they just had tonight?  Her fingertips were brushing up and down on his stomach, tenderly, hesitantly.  He stood stiff in her arms.  It had been so long.  He never slowed down enough to notice, but what if he took tonight.  Just tonight to not be lonely?  One night to work her out of his system.  One night to put this, whatever this was between them, to bed.  One night.

She let go of him and began to pull her arms away.  It was then he knew that if he let her stop touching him, if he didn’t get to touch her, taste her, he was going to end up crazier than the Joker.  Bruce grabbed her wrists, holding her arms to his body, then, when he was sure she wasn’t going anywhere, turned in her embrace until he was once again facing her.

She ran her hands up his back, and he shuddered in pleasure as her strong fingers dug into his shoulder blades pulling his body flush against hers.  Gently he cupped her face in his hands, achingly aware of her injuries, and kissed her.  It was different than the kiss in the study, or even their first kiss on the mat.  This was slow, tender; this kiss savored her and gave her the chance to savor him.  When his tongue finally slipped into her mouth she moaned as he caressed her, arousing them both.

“One night,” he whispered into her mouth.

“One night,” she agreed.  “Just, please, don’t stop.”  He smiled against her mouth as he deepened the kiss, owning her and plundering her.  He pushed her towards the first flat surface he could find, until they bumped up against the table Alfred had used to fix them up only minutes before.  Carefully, he lifted her up and set her on the table before stepping between her legs.

Her hands dipped lower, pushing his uniform down and she pulled him into her.  Moving one hand up to the small of his back, she slid the other one around until she could gently grip him in his pants.  Bruce threw his head back at that first tender touch; for one brief second he was afraid it was going to all be over before they had a chance to get started.

He grabbed her hand and pulled it up and out, then gently still, but with barely leashed power, pulled her shirt over her head.  He pulled her bra off as his mouth reclaimed hers, his hands beginning a sweet torture of their own.  Reaching down he unbuttoned her jeans, breaking the kiss long enough to pull the pants and her underwear off in one sweep.  He stepped back, his tongue dueling with hers, and didn’t stop as she pushed his own pants down. 

Kicking them off he crawled top of her on the table, her heat burning him.  Barb reached down again and grabbed him, smiling when he growled and began working him in her hand.  He wasn’t going to last three minutes in this state, and he slid down, out of her reach kissing his way down her body.  She gasped when his mouth began working her nipples, but she screamed when his tongue touched her clit.

Her legs flexed against his shoulders and he slipped a finger into her as he sucked, licked, and nipped carefully.  Her back bowed off the table and he slipped a second finger in, stretching her as she came around his fingers.  He licked one more time then slid back up her body, his blue eyes burning as she wrapped her legs around him and panted in pleasure.

Positioning himself at her entrance he pushed in slowly, her muscles contracting around him in an agony of pure bliss.  Barb threw her head back as he impaled her, her legs locking him to her as her fingernails dug furrows in his shoulder blades.

“Please Bruce,” she panted.  “Now.”

He kissed her again as he moved in and out of her.  Angling his body, he made sure he rubbed her already sensitive nerve endings.  He was careful not to put too much weight on her because of her ribs or to jostle her too much, but she didn’t seem to be feeling much of her injuries at all.  Her red hair fanned out behind her, and her skin glowed under the lights of the cave. 

Bruce felt like he was on fire.  He was moving faster now, pounding into her, his body trapped by hers.  She exploded again a second before he did; screaming into the cave as she convulsed around him.  His whole body tightened and he slammed into her, stars exploding behind his eyes.

When he collapsed he managed to roll them so that he ended up on his back and she on top of him.  They lay there like that for a long time, their breath sawing in and out, echoing in the dark cave.

Long before Barb got up, got dressed and left without saying a word Bruce knew it wasn‘t going to work: one night would never be enough.

A/N:  You will notice (here in the next two second as you read) that there is similarity here to The Killing Joke, however, my ends are not the same.  In the interest of plagiarism, though, I wanted everyone to know that I know this is similar in part.  Also (because I keep forgetting the costume question!) I’m imagining Batman in his Hush costume.  Typical, no yellow on the bat symbol etc.  I’m imagining Batgirl in the Cassandra Cain outfit minus the closed mouth.  Her head would look more like the animated Barbara Gordon’s costume with a bad-ass body like later Batgirls.  But, really, just imagine whichever costume you like best J

Chapter 10

Barb stumbled into her apartment a bit like she was drunk.  She felt drunk.  Did that just happen?  Had she really just had sex with Bruce?  And she didn’t feel bad about it.  She knew she should; she felt bad that she didn’t feel bad, but mostly she liked the way her legs were still a little shaky. 

There was no doubt that had been the best sex of her life.  And damn her if she didn’t want more.

Bruce had, well, could she call him delectable?  He made a girl want to lick him--everywhere.  The reality of the night was so all-consuming that Barb didn’t notice the way her welcome mat was crooked, or that her evening light was off.  She stumbled in with a stupid grin on her face, fantasizing; the men who had broken in before her didn’t even have to try.

Barb’s training kicked in and she spun on instinct; the solid object swung at her head missed and clocked her shoulder instead.  She grunted in pain, but kicked out, her foot landing solidly against a chest.  Muscular arms circled her neck from behind and she found herself in a headlock, her vision fading as the arm tightened.

“Well, well, well,” a voice said from out of her view.  “Little Barbie Gordon.  Do you come with different outfits and your own Ken Doll?”

The Joker’s twisted visage came into view as Barb hung, helpless from the arm choking her.

“I want Sleeping Barbie,” he laughed, then cracked a nightstick across her temple.

Barb’s first thought as she came to, was that she had to stop getting knocked out.  Her second, was that she was in a lot of trouble.  She didn’t have her belt or her tools.  No one would know she was missing for at least eight hours.  How long had she been out?  Why did the Joker want her?

“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bacy!” the cackle echoed behind her.  A hand grabbed her hair and yanked her head back.  She had lost her glasses in the fight, but she could see clearly who held her.

“What do you want with me?” she asked.  He punched her, full in the face.  Barb immediately tasted blood as her lip split on her teeth.  That was going to leave a mark.

“What does any guy ever want from Barbie?” he cooed into her face.  He swung again, and again.  Barb’s head snapped back with each punch.  She hoped her nose wasn’t broken.   “You’re turn boys!”  Barb cracked an already swelling eye open and saw a bunch of thugs circling her with crowbars and baseball bats.

“Wh--why?” she croaked out.  Her only answer was laughter as the gang went to work. 

They were careful not to hit her face.  No one knocked her out, but her already broken ribs weren’t up to a beating like this.  Barb gasped in pain and blood flew from her mouth.  They hammered her knees and arms too, and she knew she wasn’t walking away from this one.  It seemed like an eternity before the blows stopped and Barb saw blood blossoming under her shirt.

“Bring in the camera boys!”  Barb kept her head down, counting to ten over and over as she tried to breathe through the pain.

“Say ‘they only hit me cause I asked for it!’”  A hand grabbed her hair again and yanked her head back up.  Barb saw through one eye the Joker taking pictures of her.  She was tied to a chair, beaten, bloody, and helpless.

“Get these to the Comish,” the Joker told the goon next to him.  “And don’t forget our invitation!”

Barb spit more blood out of her mouth.  The Joker turned and left, his goons behind him.  She saw the door shut and heard the lock slam home.  She was alone.

Batman answered the bat signal just after dusk.  Bullock waited for him, pacing anxiously across the roof.  Batman perched on the ledge motionless and silent.

“Bout time you showed up,” Bullock barked when he saw him.  “The Commissioner asked that I give these to you.”  

The detective held out a manila envelope.  Batman took it and pulled out the notebook paper and Polaroids inside.

“He said,” the detective paused for a breath, “they’ve got his little girl.  They’re gonna kill her.”

The Batman showed no outward change to the detective, but Bullock could feel the rage as it radiated off of his body.

“I will find her,” he growled and disappeared from the roof.

Bruce felt the rage flooding his system as he gunned the Batmobile.  Somebody wanted Gordon gone from this city.  When the plot to kill him straight out hadn’t worked, they had switched to ransom.  The note offered an exchange: Gordon’s life for his daughter’s.  Even if Bruce hadn’t spent his adult life as the Batman he would know it was a lie.  They would lure Gordon in, kill him and then kill Barbara.  Assuming her injuries didn’t kill her first.

The pictures were seared into his brain.  Her face swollen, bloody; she had been tied to a chair and systematically beaten.  He parked in Crime Alley and walked into the first bar.  The room immediately went silent as the patrons shrank away from the Bat.

“I need information,” he growled into the silence.  “The first one to talk will walk out of here.”

Fifteen minutes the Bat knew one more thing than he did when he went in.  Nobody knew where the Joker was, but he had been putting together another a gang tonight.  The pay was coming from someone up top.  There was only one person with the money and power to pull a stunt like this.  It wasn’t Lewicki, but it was the person Lewicki had been close to before all of this started.  The person whose security detail Lewicki had personally seen to for the past month after several death threats were made; death threats Bruce didn’t doubt, were fake.  Robert Rand, top dog of the Gotham Board of Supervisors. 

Batman hated corrupt  politicians.

He’d been watching him as Bruce Wayne.  He’d known Rand was corrupt for years, but how had he missed a move of this extremity?  This wasn’t just taking bribes, this smacked of mob involvement.  How had he missed it?  The answer wasn‘t a mystery.  Barbara.  He’d been so distracted by her, so focused on fighting his feelings that he’d started missing things.

Batman shut it off.  He shut off his worry for Barb; his fear that his feelings had caused this.  He shut down everything, but his rage and analytical mind.  The Batmobile roared down the streets of Gotham to the private apartment of Robert Rand.

Chapter 11

Robert Rand woke up in a panic as a iron grip slowly strangled him.

“Where’s the Joker?” a voice growled in his face.

“Ack! Agh…” Rand sputtered.  Panic made him choke around the hold on his neck.  A fist shot out of the dark and popped his head back into his pillows.  The hand on his neck loosened slightly.

“You have one more chance.  Where’s the Joker?”

Robert Rand had faced down Mob bosses, psychos, and professional assassins.  He had never in his crooked life, been as terrified as he was in this moment.  But still, he hadn’t gotten this far by scaring easily.

“I--I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Rand squeaked out.

“Wrong.”  Rand was whipped out of bed, and carried to his balcony.  The Bat threw him against the wall, his strong grip never letting go of his neck, and Rand tipped over the edge, seeing the streets twenty stories below.  He reacted instinctively, grabbing a hold of Batman’s arm and kicking his legs to push himself back onto the balcony. 

“You have ten seconds.”  Rand  stared at the masked visage in silence.  Batman started to push him over the edge.

“Wa--wait!  Aren’t you going to count?!” Rand shrieked.

“Why?”  Batman growled.  Then let go. 

Rand had never screamed so loudly in his life.

“Okay!” he screamed on his way down.  “Okay, okay, okay!” 

A black line wrapped around his ankle and his leg nearly ripped out of his body, as he was jerked back up.  The fear didn’t lessen as he watched the street  pull away back to twenty stories.  He was hanging from the top of his balcony, the Batman standing, implacable in front of him.

“Tell me what I want to know.”

“Lewicki secured the joint, I don’t know where the Joker is.  Honest!”

“Where’s Lewicki?”

“He disappeared.  He said you…you came to see him.  He fed you some bullshit about his daughter and skipped town.”  The line holding Rand swayed ominously.  “I don’t know where he set the Joker up!  He…he was supposed to kidnap the girl and…and rough her up a little.  Just enough to scare Gordon.  The Joker, he’s a wild card.  I told Rand not to use him!  I wanted to just snipe Gordon while he was leaving the police station, b--but Lewicki said we should make it look like, like an attack.”

“What did Lewicki get out of this?”

“A…a promotion.  An--and in a couple of years Commissioner.”

“Why the Joker?”

“Be--because Lewicki said, he said that no one would question it.  If the Joker killed Gordon nobody would wonder why.  But he, the Joker, didn’t just kill him.  He pla--he played with him.  And then you got there.”

“Who stays in your mansion when you’re in town?”

“No--no one.”

The Batman took a recorder out from his cape and set it on the balcony out of reach from Rand.

“The police will be here in two minutes.  Don’t fall.”  Rand watched as the Bat leapt off the balcony and swung away into the night, while he swung from the building, twenty stories high.

Alfred’s voice flooded the Batmobile as Bruce flew towards Rand’s mansion outside of town. 

“Sir?  Are you there sir?”

“Go ahead Alfred.”

“Sir, the news of Miss Gordon’s capture is all over the news and Master Dick is en route.  He has asked for any news.”

Dick.  The last thing he wanted to worry about was Dick.

“Tell him I’m taking care of it Alfred.  He should stay where he is.”

“With all due respect sir, I don’t believe Master Dick will do any such thing.”

Batman ran through scenarios.  In all of them Dick’s help could make the difference between saving Barb and not.  Bruce knew that Dick and Barb had had some sort of thing in the past.  He knew it was over, but that didn’t mean Dick might never forgive him for what happened.  Even though Dick was with Kory now; he didn’t need to know what had happened.  What wouldn’t happen again.

“I’m on my way to Robert Rand’s mansion north of Gotham.”  If he got there in time so be it.

Bruce stopped the Batmobile far enough back the growling engine wouldn’t be heard by anyone in the mansion.  Invisible in the shadows he went East, approaching the main house from the concealment of the woods on its Eastern edge.  There were lights on inside and several armed guards posted at various entrances.  Looks like he’d found the right place.

Barbara could be anywhere inside there.  And so could the Joker.

“What do you think?”  Nightwing’s voice whispered from behind him.  Bruce kept his attention on the mansion. 

“Side door.  Least guarded, and poorly lit.  That’s our best shot of getting inside undetected.”

“Okay how about--”  Nightwing stopped speaking when he realized Bruce was already on the move. 

A batarang shot out, taking out the light above the door before two more hit the two guards standing in front square in the forehead.  They dropped to the ground soundlessly.  Batman opened the door and slipped into the interior hallway, Nightwing right behind.  The mansion was eerily quiet.  They reached the main foyer quickly, and Bruce signaled he was going upstairs while Dick should finish searching the first floor.

Bruce stealthily climbed up to the top floor.  The lights were out on the middle floors with no sign of movement.  As he reached the top landing he worked his way down the hall towards a half cracked door.  The sounds and flickering light of a television lit the hall.  He peered in carefully and saw the two chairs in front of the T.V. were empty.  An open door behind them led into another room.  Feeling a shift in the air he turned and saw Dick approaching behind him.  Wordlessly Dick followed him into the first room as someone grunted from the back.

“Sonofabitch!” a male voice cried out.  “Stupid fucking bitch!” 

Bruce looked carefully into the room and saw Barb.  She looked worse than she had in the pictures.  Blood caked her face and hair, one eye was swollen shut and the other almost so.  Seven men circled her, the one in front holding his family jewels like someone had tried to rip them out.  So this is where the guards inside were.

“I thought you said she was out!” the man holding his crotch, the same voice as before, screamed.

“You’re the dumbass that stood in front of her,” the man to his left smirked.

Their guns were slung across their backs.  The five on either side and behind her were the most immediate threat; the one in front of her was still hunched over, whining.  A third man, without saying anything, backhanded Barb.  It was the last thing he ever did.

The Batman was a shadow of fear and pain as he ran into the room.  Nightwing came in beside him, cutting right, as Bruce went left.  The man who had mocked his friend went down with a punch to the face.  The one behind him, flew backwards as Bruce’s boot slammed into his chest.  The third man was backhanded, then hit with an elbow.  The fourth, the one who hit Barbara, was grabbed, his hand jerked up behind his back, and smashed against the wall.

Without care or pity, Bruce yanked his shoulder out of socket and bashed his head into the wall leaving him a mewling mess on the floor.

“Get their guns,” he growled to Dick.  Dick looked unhappy at being kept from helping Barb, but he swept all the guns away from the groaning thugs. 

Tenderly, Bruce cut the plastic cuffs holding Barb’s hands behind her back, and caught her as she slumped off the chair.  She groaned softly in pain as he picked her up, holding her across his chest.

“Bru--Batman?” she whispered softly.

“I’ve got you,” he said.  “Just hang on a  little longer.”

Nightwing stepped over, gently brushing Barb’s bloodsoaked hair back from her face.  Bruce fought a sudden bought of jealousy, and tightened his hold.

“Hey Bab’s,” Dick said with a small smile.  Bruce turned away, taking Barbara out of Dick’s reach and started for the door.  It was an unexpected reaction, but one that didn’t seem suspicious to Dick.

Without being told Nightwing jumped in front of Batman, leading the way as they began their escape.  All went well until they were almost down the stairs.  A group of guards, laughing, came around the corner shocked into silence when they saw the two heroes with their captive.  In the instant it took the guards to swing their guns around and start shooting, Nightwing kicked the first one in the forehead, knocking him back into the group as both he and Batman spun, taking off down the second floor hallway.  Gunfire peppered the walls behind them as they ran. 

Dick threw the hall table through the window at the end of the hall a second before Bruce hit it, letting him jump through without having to worry about Barbara.  Turning he jumped up, surprising the guards on their tail as he took care of them in short order.  Jumping out the window he raced to the woods behind Batman.

Barb was out cold in Bruce’s arms.  Dick felt something inside him twist as he looked at her broken face.  Sure, he was with Kory now but part of him would always feel--something--for Barb.  Certainly it broke his heart to see her like this.  He knew Bruce would take care of her; he trusted Bruce implicitly, though, Dick wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Bruce this gentle with anyone.

They worked their way back to the Batmobile and Dick’s motorcycle in short order.

“Which hospital are you taking her to?” Dick asked.

“Gotham Central.”  Bruce’s reply was terse.  He was carefully placing Barb in the seat of the Batmobile.  There was an emotion Dick hadn’t heard before--was it, fear? 

“What about the Joker?” Dick asked.

“He’s mine,” the Batman growled.  “Go home.  I’ll take care of it from here.”

“Sure,” Dick replied sarcastically, sitting on his motorcycle.  He had no intention of leaving until he was sure Babs was healthy and safe.

Starting his bike, his back tire kicked up dust as he took off for the manor.  He needed a change of clothes.  Bruce Wayne couldn’t visit Barbara Gordon in the hospital without raising questions, but Dick Grayson could.

A/N:  I wanted to say (very quickly) that I know I haven’t highlighted Barb’s excellent fighting skills in this story as she deserves.  I’m not having her get the ever living crap kicked out of her continuously because everybody loves a good damsel-in-distress but because it’s just the way the story worked out.  My inner feminist just wanted you guys to know, that I know, despite her getting captured twice now, Barbara Gordon is more than capable of fighting off multiple bad guys.
Chapter 12

One week later

Barb hadn’t seen Bruce for a week.  Not since he had dropped her off at the hospital.  She knew there was no believable reason in all the varied universes why Bruce Wayne would visit Barbara Gordon, but she thought he would maybe sneak into her hospital window as Batman at least once.  Just to check on her.

Stupid asshole.

It was easier to turn all of her conflicting emotions where Bruce was concerned into anger.  Anger was manageable and something she understood.  And besides, it wasn’t like he wasn’t easy to hate.  A vision of Bruce’s body on top of hers filled her vision.

Stupid, stupid asshole.

“Hey honey,” her dad’s voice cut into her muddled musings.

“Hi Dad,” Barb replied.  Her face was mottled with bruises, well her whole body was, but these bruises hid her blush.  Her dad still got that sad dad look every time he looked at her.  Except for her ribs, and knees, and muscles, she was doing okay.  At least she could move around without crying now.  The doctor promised as long as she didn’t get beat up again for at least a couple of months she would be good as new.  If only he knew.

“You ready to go home?” he asked her.

“You betcha.”  Barb was dressed in some clothes her dad brought her from home and already had her legs hanging off the side of the bed.  She had done her best to be ready to go so her dad wouldn’t see how long it was still taking her to move around.

Jim Gordon gently took his daughter’s elbow as she pushed herself to her feet.  He knew she was hiding how sore and stiff she still was, but he also knew she liked to keep her secrets.  His heart splintered every time he saw what those monsters had done to his baby girl, but he put on his best cop face and pretended everything was going to be okay.

“Stop worrying Dad,” Barb teased him as they walked out.  “I’m alright!”

“Well,” he answered gruffly, “Be that as it may you’re still staying with me for awhile.”

“No,” Barb said strongly.  “Absolutely not. I want to be home.  I want my stuff and my apartment.”

“The Joker’s still on the loose,” Gordon warned her.  “I am not leaving you alone.”

“The Joker was working for Rand,” Barb reminded him.  “He has no personal interest in either of us.”

“And that bastard Lewicki, he hasn’t been caught either!”

“No Dad,” Barb said again.  “I’m going home.”

“Home with me,” Gordon said agreeably.

“To my home.  I’m not arguing with you about this.”

“What if I stay with you for awhile?” her dad offered.

“Dad,” Barb sighed, her temper easing back down.  “I appreciate it.  You know I do, but I  just need some time to decompress.  Please.”

Gordon knew he’d lost this battle, but he also knew she didn’t have to know he’d assigned two plainclothes to watch her building.

“Fine honey,” he gave in, kissing her head.  “We’ll do it your way.”

When Barb got home, she immediately collapsed on her bed.  Even with a week long stay in the hospital it felt like she hadn’t slept in years.  Maybe it was just because she hadn’t been home in two weeks.  At least not home long enough to do anything but get kidnapped. 

Some Batgirl she turned out to be.  Kidnapped in her own apartment.  Kidnapped because she’d been too busy remembering having sex with a man who couldn’t even be bothered to check on her in the hospital.  Dick had been there.  Dick, who now lived with another woman, and still cared more about her than her supposed…what?  What the hell did she even call Bruce?  Dick who would lose his shit if he found out what Barb and Bruce had done.  She and Bruce were going to have words.  Many, many loud, angry words--just as soon as she took a nap.

Barb woke a long time later.  It was fully dark out, the clock by her bed said 11:27.  So much for just taking a nap.  Now she was going to be up half the night. 

Pushing herself out of bed with a groan, she hobbled into the kitchen for a glass of water.  Her ribs still ached, her legs still ached, her everything still ached.

“Note to self: do not get beat up again,” Barb said out loud.

“I agree,” a deep voice rumbled behind her.

“Good grief!” she squealed as her heart missed a beat in her chest.  Spinning around Barb saw him, standing there in her kitchen like he owned it, damn him.

“Do you have to be so sneaky?” she yelled at him.

“Yes,” he replied not moving.  When he said nothing more, Barb turned back to the sink and finished filling her glass.

“Thank you,” she pushed out.  “For saving me.”

He still stood silent behind her.

Barb slammed the glass down on the counter and spun around.

“What Bruce?” she shot.  “What do you want?  You don’t bother to so much as check up on me all week, and now you show up and what?  Dick gave you the rundown, you know I’m fine.  Why come to my apartment?  You could have contacted me on the communicator.  So what the hell do you want?”

He flashed forward, closing the distance between them.  Barb forgot how fast he could move when he wanted to.  Gently, mindful of her bruises, he tipped her head back and placed his lips on hers before she knew what was coming.

Barb lost herself for an instant.  All the pain in her body, the anger she had created out of her confusion, melted away as his warm lips moved over hers.  She remembered their moment in the cave.  Remembered how perfectly he had felt on her, in her.  She reached up, grabbing the cape where it draped across his chest and pulled him forward.  She felt her ribs twinge at the movement, and she came back to reality.  With a shove she pushed Bruce back, away from her even, though, she was fighting herself to pull him closer.

“No,” she half sobbed.  The emotions of the last few weeks finally overwhelming her as she fought to take shallow breaths through the pain in her side.  “This is not…I’m not your mistake.”

“I don’t,” he started then stopped, standing still just staring at her.  “I never said you were a mistake.”

“It was implied,” Barb bit off.  With another pause for courage, she decided she might as well go for painful honesty.  “I…I want you.  But not, not unless we can do this without guilt.”

“Guilt over me, you mean?”  Barb felt her heart freeze in her chest, as she heard Dick’s voice from her patio door.  “Or guilt because he is way too old for you.”

“Oh god,” Barb whispered.  “Dick…”

Batman stood silent, not so much as a muscle twitch giving away what he felt.

“It’s alright Barb,” Dick said, turning back to the patio door, “I’m with Kory now.  It wasn’t right for me to come here.”  He turned and leapt into the darkness before she could stop him.

Helpless Barb looked at Bruce, but he was as cold as a statue.

“I am too old for you,” he finally said quietly.  “And you’re right.  This is a mistake.”

He left as quickly as Dick and she was alone.  Barb slid to the floor and just sat there, in the dark, for a very long time.

Chapter 13

Barb went ahead and gave herself that night and all the next day.  She cried.  She tore up her apartment.  She overslept.  She gorged on donuts and Sarah Lee frozen pies until she was pretty sure her blood sugar was spiking 250.

On the third day she tried calling Dick.  No answer.  She left a message.

On the fourth day she checked her communicator.  Nothing from Bruce or Tim.

On the fifth day she called Dick again.  No answer.  She didn’t leave a message.

On the sixth day she got mad.  It was a quick trip to New York.  Kory answered the door.

“Can I help you?” she asked bewildered.

“I’m here to see Dick.”

“Oh, of course.  May I tell him whose here?”

“Barbara Gordon.”  Kory looked at her again, more carefully this time, noticing the power in the way she held herself, the obvious irritation behind her glasses.

“Please come in,” Kory invited her.  “I’ll go get Dick.”

Barb stood  in the apartment’s small living room as Kory disappeared around the corner.  She heard Kory’s whisper, and Dick’s angry grumble.

“I don’t want to see her.”

Kory again.  Still to soft to make out.  There was a long pause.

“Fine,” Dick growled.  Barb didn’t turn around when he came into the main room.  She could feel his anger.  So be it.  She was angry too.

“We need to talk,” Barb said simply, turning around and facing him.  He stood in the archway between the kitchen area and the living room in a pair of low slung, well worn jeans.  A ratty t-shirt was stretched tight across his shoulders, and his black hair hung in his eyes.  He’d obviously just woken up, but there was no trace of lethargy in his gaze as he stared her down, only ill concealed ire.

“About what?” he sniped,  “you and…and him?  I’m over it.  It’s none of my business anyway.”

“Clearly,” Barb responded, keeping her voice even.  “That’s why you won’t return my calls, and are standing here looking at me like I’m some thug trying to kill you.”

Dick spun, a sound of aggravation escaping, and tromped into the kitchen.  He pulled a mug out of the cupboard, and filled it with coffee.  Kory came out of the bedroom and stood awkwardly for a moment before leaving.

“I’m going to go shopping,” she finally said.

“Don’t go,” Dick told her.  “Barbara was just leaving.” 

“Please Richard,” Barb countered.  “I really wanted to catch up on old times.”

Kory leaned in and kissed Dick on the cheek.  Barb was surprised at how easy they were together, and how unaffected she was by watching their relationship.

“I’ll be back later,” Kory told him.  She gave Barb a meaningful look before leaving.  Barb wished she knew what it meant.

“That’s a good girlfriend you’ve got,” Barb said after a long pause.

“Why him?!” Dick shouted suddenly.  “Why?  Why him?”

“Why do you care?” Barb shouted back.  “We’ve been over a long time!  You’re obviously in love with Kory.  Why do you care?”

“Because it’s him, Babs,” Dick ground out.  “Can you understand that?  He’s…he’s like my father!  He is my adoptive father. For you and he to…to be anything is just…not right.”

Barbara approached him slowly, her anger dissipating.  She knew he would feel this way; she knew a relationship with Bruce was complicated and messy at best, and Dick was only one complication.  Bruce was too old, too hard, too wrong for her.  And she woke up every night with his name on her lips.

“Dick,” Barb began.  She leaned on the counter that separated the kitchen from the living space, while Dick leaned back against the cupboards away from her.  “It just happened.  I know that sounds stupid, but I couldn’t tell you how.”  She stopped for a second, starring out the window as she gathered her thoughts.

“One minute we’re sparring on the mat, and the next,” she looked at Dick, pushing her glasses up on her nose.  “But I’m…I like him.  I like him a lot.  Maybe it’s just lust, maybe infatuation.  Maybe I was always doomed to…like him.  Who knows?  But you’re with Kory now,” Barb pushed off the counter and walked to the end.  “You’re with Kory, and I know it’s, complicated, but can’t we still talk?  Does this mean we’re not friends anymore?”

Dick stared at her a long time, his coffee forgotten as he held it against his chest.  When he spoke there wasn’t anger in his voice any longer, only hurt.

“I’m not mad at you Babs,” he finally said.  “I’m mad at him.  But it doesn’t matter if I’m mad at him, so I got mad at you.”

“But why Dick?” she pushed.

“Seriously?” he asked aghast.  “You really can’t figure it out?  There’s my…my friend whose been put in the hospital by the Joker’s goons, and I’m out of my head worrying about you.  So we rescue you, and I come check on you only to find you two…in your kitchen!  What’s up Dad?  How’s my ex?”

Barb punched him in the shoulder.  Hard.

“If I’m your ex I get to date who I want to date!”

“So you’re dating now?” Dick mocked her.  “It’s an unwritten rule Babs.  You don’t date a guy’s father!”

“Jesus H. Christ!” Barb shouted at the ceiling.  “He’s not old enough to have legally fathered either of us, and I’m older than you!  Get over yourself!”

Dick stared into his coffee for a long time before taking another sip.

“You’re not meant to be with him,” he whispered.

“Dick,” Barb said gently, “whether you’re right or not, I’m not meant to be with you either.”

“I know,” he said with broken chuckle.  “I do love Kory.”

“I know you do,” Barb said, coming to stand next to him.  She bumped her shoulder into his companionably.  “So can we stop being mad at each other?”

“We can stop being mad at each other,” Dick sighed.  “Just…no making out in front of me okay?  It’s weird.  You two is just weird.  I don’t like it, but I’ll deal.  As long as you don’t make out in front of me.”

“Well call before you come over next time,” Barb teased him.

“Eeww,” Dick groaned.  “That’s gross Babs.  Very, very gross.”

“It’s okay Dick,” she said, her smile faltering.  “After all of this there might not be anything to worry about.”

He looked at her profile, while she stared at the floor.

“If he hurts you I will kill him,” Dick said evenly.  “I’ll bribe Alfred and we’ll kill him.  Tim will help too.”

‘Ha!” Barb laughed.  “That would be something to see.  No, he’s just him.  I’ll figure it out.”

“Seriously,” Dick said bumping her back.  “Dead before he ever leaves the cave.”  Barb hugged him, hard and quick.

“I’m going home,” she told him.  “Tell Kory I’m sorry I barged in here like this.”

“Babs,” Dick stopped her as she opened the door.  “You can do better.  I love the man, and respect him more than any other person I know, but he doesn’t----he’s not easy to love.  You deserve someone who will love you back.”

Barb stood on her tiptoes and gently kissed Dick’s cheek.

“I know,” she said with a small smile.  “But right now I just want him.”

As the door closed behind her, Dick turned and went for another cup of coffee.

“I’ll kill him,” he said to no one.

Chapter 14

It took Barb another day before she worked up the nerve to show up at the cave.  She’d been field ready for awhile now, but Bruce ready, well was she ever?

Barb parked her motorcycle on the stretch of metal out of the way.  It felt good to be on her bike again; her ribs still gave a twinge on occasion, but she was going stir crazy at night.  Even her dad’s lively games of Canasta weren’t enough to keep Barb from staring out her apartment into the night, craving the rush of adrenaline that only came when she jumped off a building.

Bruce sat at his computer, the bat suit in place, but his cowl pushed back off his head.  His black hair stood on end, and his cheeks showed the early growth of stubble, as he stared intently at the monitor.  Barb knew he saw her; he’d probably seen her drive up before she even entered the cave.  She stood back, playing the patience game as she waited for him to acknowledge her.

When he sat back in his chair, his hands crossed in his lap, she knew he wasn’t looking at the screen any more.

“Well?” He broke the silence first, his deep rumble echoing across the cave and along her body.

“I’m ready to come back.”

He stood up from his chair, spinning around, and stalked her.  In three steps he had her caught between the railing of the computer platform and his body.  Barb worked to keep her breathing even while he stared at her.  His artic eyes probed her body, checking her face, her arms and legs, her torso.  She wet her lips nervously, waiting for some sign, some move that showed he was still affected by her. 

“Good.”  He spun around and sat back at the computer monitor.

Good?  Barb thought.  Good?!  Oh hell no.

She moved behind the chair, and her leather jacket creaked as she reached up and grabbed the back.  With a tug, she spun him around, leaning in to hold the chair in position as her face stopped inches from his.

“I don’t hear from you for almost two weeks, and all you can say is good?” Barb said vehemently into his face.  Her finger poking his chest to accentuate her point.  “Don’t play the unfeeling game with me buddy, I know better.”

Bruce grabbed her hand, spinning it around and under, pulling her body so that her back was too him, then wrapping his other arm around her waist and tugging back.  In exactly one quarter of a second, Barb found herself pinned to his chest, on his lap, with one arm caught behind her at his mercy.

His breath tickled her neck as his low grumble whispered into her ear.

“This will stop now,” he ordered.  “I will not jeopardize our safety so that we can discuss your feelings.  I will not give up another second to a consideration of our relationship, what you imagine we feel for each other, or any other ridiculous notion you’ve latched onto.”

“Don’t.  Tell me. What. To. Do!”  Barb flipped herself off the chair, breaking his grip on her hand and landing in a crouch away from him.  Standing she turned and looked at Bruce coldly.

“You’re a coward and a liar,” she said softly.  “We both knew one night wasn’t going to fix anything.  I’m willing to see where this goes, so the only question is: are you?”

Barb walked off the platform toward the changing room without a backward glance.

Bruce didn’t speak to her again.  Not when they got in the Batmobile.  Not when they patrolled the city.  Six hours later, Barb was silently praying for someone to rob a bank, try to blow up the city, speed, anything.  It was an agonizingly slow night.  Barb thought she might break, right there on the roof of the First National Savings & Loan if he didn’t talk to her soon.  Variations of “kiss me!” seemed to be always on the verge of busting out.  The police sirens sped by below them, just as she felt her resolve weakening; there was no telling what she might have done in the next few minutes if Gotham didn’t occupy her.  After another five minutes of silence Barb wondered  if she shouldn’t have started the night by calling him a coward.

When they arrived at the scene, Gordon didn’t bat an eye.  He quietly ushered his men back down the dark alley the prostitute’s dead body had been found in, and gave the Bat room to work.  Barb stayed on the fire escape, knowing Bruce liked to process a scene by himself.

“What do you think?” Gordon asked, keeping his eyes focused some bit of the alley wall.

“Test subject,” Batman growled from the shadows of the body.  “Some new poison.”

“Why?” Gordon asked tiredly.

“I’ll let you know.  I‘ll meet you at 10^th and Lakewood in one hour.” 

“The roof, I take it?” Gordon asked, but the Bat was already gone.

Barb waited for Bruce on the roof of the building overlooking the crime scene and followed him wordlessly as they traveled back to the Batmobile.  When they were on their way back to the cave she used the case to break their six hours of silence.

“Someone invented a new poison?” she asked him.  “And killed that poor woman to test it?”

Bruce watched the road, ignoring her or lost in thought she wasn’t sure.  She’d begun watching the scenery fly by before he answered.

“I won’t know until I can run some tests at the cave, but I think this is a more potent Joker toxin.”

“That’s not good,” Barb whispered.

At the cave Barb tried to narrow down possible hideouts of the Joker while Bruce ran his tests, but it was hopeless.  There were just too many abandoned buildings, empty warehouses, and welcoming crooks in this city.  Without any sort of a clue he could, literally, be anywhere, and that was just in the city proper, never mind the sewers, the country side, or the suburbs.

“Let’s go,” Bruce interrupted her.  Exactly forty five minutes from the time they left the crime scene, they were en route to meet her father.

“So any idea where the Joker could be hiding?” Barb asked as the city flew by.

“None.”

When he spoke again, it was Barb who was shocked to silence.

“You realize it would compromise us to be…romantically involved.”  Barb turned her head from the window back to Bruce’s implacable face.  She had not expected him to just bring it up.

“I do,” she finally replied.

“It was unethical of me to respond to you as I did.”  He parked the car and hopped out.  Barb followed hot on his heels.

“I’m pretty sure it was ethical from my view point,” she countered.

“It was a mistake,” he said, then shot his grapple and flew away.  Barb flew after him, landing next to him on the roof.

“I’m a big girl,” she said softly, but strongly.  “It may have been a mistake from your point of view, but I thought it was just fine.”

“First Nightwing, now me--”

“Whoa,” Barb cut him off, her temper flaring.  “I am not some sort of groupie.”

“I never said--”

“Oh you’ve said quite enough,” she hissed, getting in his face.  “What, because I once dated Di--Nightwing I can’t be interested in you?  I’ve talked to him, we’re fine.  It’s you that has the problem.”

“You’ve talked to him?” he asked her quietly.

“Yes.  He doesn’t like it, but he’s fine,” Barb informed him.  “So you just take your self-righteous bullshit and use it on something else.  This was not a mistake.  You never want to have sex again?  Fine.  But I’m not hiding behind this ‘it’s wrong, it can never work’ crap anymore.  You’re hot, I like you, the sex was great.  End of freaking story!  Why can’t we just enjoy each other?  Why does it always have to be so god damned complicated?”

Before Barb could walk away and cool down, Bruce grabbed her and kissed her.  Her first thought was to notice how easy it was to kiss with their masks on.  Her second thought was recognizing how unseemly hot she found his constant manhandling of her.  She never had a third thought.

It had always been like this when they kissed.  His lips were dry and warm; when his tongue slipped into her mouth, she felt like Christmas lights were lighting up down her body.  She pushed her body to his, irritated with their costumes and the armor under them.  She wanted to feel him, his warmth, his muscles pushing against hers.

“Ahem,” a voice interrupted.

Bruce spun away from her like he’d been shot.  His face was unreadable, but Barb had to turn around to hide the blush swamping her entire visage.  Commissioner Gordon didn’t know it, but he’d just caught his daughter making out with her vigilante boss/partner/lover guy.  Barb sighed inwardly at how ridiculous her life had become.

“It is the Joker,” Bruce said, his voice emotionless.  “He’s developed a more potent toxin.”

“And he’s testing it out on prostitutes?” Gordon asked.

“I would guess she’s the first one that came along,” Batman answered.

“So what do we do?  How do we plan for this?”

“I’ll start developing anti-toxin tonight,” Bruce told him.  “But finding Joker has to be our priority.”

Gordon took a moment to look meaningfully at Batgirl standing a ways back from them.

“If I find anything I’ll let you know immediately,” Gordon said.

Batman nodded then jumped off the edge.  Barb followed, the blush still staining her cheeks as her dad disappeared over the lip of the roof.

Chapter 15

Barb cross-checked empty buildings in Gotham for the thirteenth time while Bruce left another batch of anti-toxin to cook.  This would be enough for whatever shift was on duty when the Joker hit, but Barb knew Bruce wouldn’t stop there.  He would make enough for the whole force, maybe the whole city if he thought it was necessary.  It was one of the things she loved about him.

Whoa, Barb stopped herself, whoa.  She covertly looked over at the chemistry table as the computer ran her program again.  He was hunched over examining something through the microscope.  The smell of cooking chemicals filled the cave, and Barb admired the play of muscles under Bruce’s uniform.  He had taken his cape off when he started working on the anti-toxin and the Kevlar too.  What was left was the tight fit of grey-black material stretched over his torso.  Barb had been sneaking glances at him all night; guilt always followed along her admiration when she looked at him.  She shouldn’t be so easily distracted from finding the Joker, but she wasn’t not dedicated to their work.  Her biggest fear was that Bruce really believed she was a bored girl playing dress up.  How could she defend herself when she was watching him at every break? But as the computer ran her program each time there was nothing she could do but wait.  Every time it brought up nothing she modified her program and ran it again.  While the computer did it’s thing was it so bad if Barb let her mind wander to Bruce?  She loved watching him work.

Oh god she loved him.

Barb put her head in her hands and breathed through her mouth.  How had this happened?  How did she let this happen?  It was just a crush, and then it was just sex.  Yeah he’d saved her, but that wasn’t the first time.  What made any of this different?  Why now when she looked at the tired set of his shoulders did she feel the need to…to comfort him?  A groan slipped out as the full weight of her predicament settled on her shoulders.  Her heart jumped when she felt a warm hand gently touch the back of her neck.

“You’ve done enough,” he said softly.  “Go home.”

Barb raised her head out of her hands and let her eyes meet his.  He was being kind, his hand gently tucked her hair behind her ear.  She’d put her glasses down somewhere, on the desk maybe, and that softened the harsh edges of his face.  She stood slowly and brought her right hand up, placing her fingers tenderly on the Bat symbol on his chest.  How long would this last?  How long would he let her touch him?  Bringing her left hand up, she cupped his face, her thumb rubbing over the day’s old growth on his jaw.

“I want to touch you.”  Barb said it softly, but not timidly.  Where had her courage come from?  Opening herself up to Bruce like this was the most dangerous thing she’d ever done, but maybe because she knew the outcome; she knew this would end with her heart broken, and she knew that if she didn’t ask to touch him he would never let her again.  If she wanted him, however little for however long, she was going to have to ask for it.  And she was going to have to settle for whatever he would give her.

Barb was fine with that. 

Her cape swished around their bodies as she reached up and kissed him.  She hadn’t changed yet, though she had pushed the cowl back off of her face, and it made her feel different, more bold somehow.  Bruce kissed her back, neither pushing nor pulling away.  The cooking chemicals and the computer made a strange ambiance as she nipped at his lips, begging for entry into his mouth.  She could feel him fighting some internal battle, before his hands gripped her hips, pulling her close as he threw himself into the kiss.

She unhooked his belt, laying it down gently on the nearest surface, and flipped them around so his back was to the chair.  She gently maneuvered him back until his legs hit the edge, then pushed him down until he was sitting.  He immediately pulled her on top of him, her knees outside of his, as she straddled him.  They stayed like that for aching minutes, frustrated by the material of their costumes; Bruce’s hips rolled into hers and she felt him under the suit pushing into her.

When his hands slipped up under her top Barb threw her head back and forgot what she was doing.  The Bat symbol on her chest bunched as he pushed the material out of the way, his rough hands making her moan.  Barb lost herself when he bent his head down, his tongue finding her nipple while his finger pinched the other one.  Her hands buried in his hair, pulling him close while her breathing changed to panting.  Finally, even though it was the hardest thing Barb had ever done, she pulled away from his mouth.

“I want to touch you,” she whispered, leaning in and kissing him again as her knees slid out of the chair.  When her feet hit the ground, she dropped to her knees in front of him, her eyes still locked with his, as her hands trailed down his chest.

“Barb,” he began when her hands found his waist band.

“Please,” she told him, tugging the pants down.  Bruce’s blue eyes sparked as he obligingly lifted his hips, letting her pull the tights down to his boots.  Barb ran her hands back up the inside of his thighs, greedily taking a moment just to stare at him. Bruce’s breathing was still even, but his erection stood straight up against his stomach, and she could feel his muscles, tight and twitching under her hands.

With a wicked grin, Barb went to work.

She wasn’t an expert at blow jobs, but she’d had a few friends that were and they gave very detailed instructions.  Barb called on every bit of knowledge as she licked the underside from base to tip.  She used her tongue liberally, licking around the top, using her hands to grip him, tugging up and down as she teased him with her mouth until a tiny drop glistened on the tip.

His breathing wasn’t as even now, and Barb took just the tip between her lips, laughing as his hips shot up, seeking her.  Rolling her eyes up until she had captured Bruce’s gaze, Barb swallowed him in one gulp.

His hands dug into the arms of the chair as she worked her head up and down.  She sucked him while she licked him, using his moans as a roadmap.  She moved her left hand up, holding him and massaging him in time with her mouth.  When her nail scraped gently across the skin just behind his sac Bruce lost control.

His hands flew from the arms of the chair to her head, driving her up and down at his speed.  Barb laughed, the sound making him throw his head back as it vibrated in her mouth.  She opened her throat and swallowed him whole as his hips rammed into her mouth.  She relished making him lose control.  When his thrusts became frantic, she felt him tighten in her hands and scrapped her tongue up the underside along the vein she could feel pulsing there; he exploded in her mouth.  Barb swallowed it all, not releasing him until he was completely soft in her mouth.

Bruce’s head lay back against the chair, his chest rising and falling as he sucked in air.  Without opening his eyes, he grabbed her hand, and pulled her onto his lap, his hands finding the warmth of her stomach under her pushed up top.

When Bruce finally opened his eyes and looked at her, her heart skipped in her chest.  There was a predatory glint in his eyes that she’d never seen before.  Barb knew what prey felt like then, and she liked it.  He carefully held her as he slid out of the chair and lowered them both to the ground.

“That--” he began, but was interrupted when the computer above them began beeping wildly.

“Found the Joker,” Barb told him as they sat up staring at the screen.  Bruce hopped up, yanked his pants into place and was gone.

“Perfect timing,” Barb mumbled to herself.  Time to go save Gotham.

Chapter 16

Barb felt--she wasn’t sure how she felt.  Barbara squeezed her eyes shut for a moment as the world spun below her.  Everything felt so surreal; she wasn’t a vixen.  Barbara Gordon, mousy librarian, had never been the femme fatale.  So how was it she, and not someone like Vikki Vale or Vesper Fairchild, could still taste Bruce in her mouth?

A movement to the left caught her eye and Barb pushed her emotional muck to the back of her mind; four luxury cars converged on the building from different directions and she alerted Bruce while looking closer through her own binoculars.  Several prominent members of the mob got out of the vehicles and looked around before entering a side door in the building.  Bruce motioned for Barb to follow as they soundlessly flew from one building, to the roof of the other.

Bruce was right.  This was absolutely a distraction and it was most certainly going to get them both killed.  But was he also right that the only solution was to ignore it?  Put it away and never think about it again?  Barb couldn’t accept that.  And yet, just how bold would he let her be before he cut her off completely?  She’d watch him cut people out of his life since she had first donned her own makeshift cape; she just never thought she could be one of those many faceless women lost to his history, but then, she never thought to be one of his many faceless women period.

Barb watched their back as Bruce peered through a skylight.  The night was cold but not windy; a new moon left them with no light in this broken part of town.  The streetlights had long since gone out, and the buildings were vacant, abandoned to squatters and thieves. 

“Watch the roof,” Bruce told her.

“I--”

“Stay.”  He jumped off the edge of the building and swung through a broken window into the top floor.  Barb sat on the roof, but she didn’t like it.  He had told her to stay like some dog, but she also knew better than to argue with him in the field.  If she disobeyed him chances were they would lose the Joker.  There was always the possibility one of them would get hurt.

For the first time since Bruce kissed her a lifetime ago, Barb wished Tim were there.  He’d gotten wrapped up in some Titans thing a world away, literally, and had left her alone with Bruce.  That hadn’t been so bad an hour ago when she was on her knees, but now she wanted someone to watch the roof while she went after him.

Barb stayed still another ten minutes, fuming to herself while her eyes scanned the roads around the warehouse.  Their comlink was silent.  Bruce could be doing recon or he could be--

BOOM!

Barb’s pulse spiked as the explosion rocked the building.  The windows on the second floor blew out and the glass rained down on the street below.  She scurried to the other side of the building as she heard voices, trusting the Batman, but worried; if he had been on that floor when it blew--no.  She refused to think about it.

A minute later, the loud voices of hired goons carried easily to the roof and Barb watched them through her binoculars.  One was bald, his scalp tattooed and built like a bulldog, while the other was more lithe, wavy black hair hanging in his face.  They were both dressed in the expensive suits of the mob.

“They got the Bat?” Tattoo said to the slimmer one.

“Yup,” Slim answered.  “Blew himself up trying to get through the second floor.”

Barb felt her blood freeze.

“Are they sure he ain’t fakin’?” Tattoo asked skeptically.

“If he is, he’s a good actor,” Slim answered quietly.  “He’s got enough shrapnel sticking out of him to decimate an army, and he was out cold when they found him.”

Who were they?  Her frustration rose as the conversation between the two thugs moved on to inane topics.  She dropped silently into the access road behind them, the shadows concealing her.  Deciding Slim probably knew more, but Tattoo would talk quicker, Barb threw a batarang, dropping Slim where he stood while she ran up the road, jumped on the hood of the car, and leapt off, her boot connecting with Tattoo’s head.

He dropped like a log and Barb tied them both up on either sides of the road.  She slapped Tattoo lightly not stopping when he began groaning until he came to fully.

“Sto--stop it!” he whined.

“Where’s Batman?”

He looked up at her skeptically, no fear in his eyes.  Barb swallowed her sigh.  Nobody was ever afraid of her.  Maybe it was the hair.

Without preamble she dropped her hand, grabbed a handful of his crotch and twisted.

“Oooww!!!” he squealed. 

Barb let up minutely.  “Where’s Batman?”

“I don’t know,” he panted.

“Wrong answer.”  She twisted again, not stopping until his voice cracked in pain.  She squatted in front of him, hand still in place and waited.

“He, he blew himself up,” Tattoo panted.

Barb still stared at him. She squeezed lightly to remind him of her hand.

“Alright!  Okay!” he whined.  “The Joker’s men got him!  They took him down to the basement!  The, the Joker was gonna do something to him in front of the mob bosses!”

“How many are there?”  When Tattoo didn’t answer quickly enough, Barb pinched.

“I was countin’!  I was just countin’!” he begged.  “Um, four families.  Th--they each brought two bodyguards each.  The Jo--Joker’s got, like six dudes.”  He was pushed back into the wall, his body trying to escape her ruthless grip.  There was fear in his eyes now.

Barb evaluated him one more time, then punched him with her free hand.  His hand bounced off the brick wall behind him, and he slumped unconscious.

Four bosses, with two guards each. She’d taken out two which  left eight mob guys, six of the Joker’s and the Joker himself.  Fifteen all told.  She could take them, the question was, could she take them before one of them killed Bruce?  There was no time to call Dick; Tim was off world.  The Justice League was out of touch.  It was just her.

“So be it,” Barb whispered and slipped into the building.

Chapter 17

There were two more mob guys in the foyer of the broken building.  Barb slipped in the room silently and popped up between them before they realized they weren’t alone.  While they were still reaching for their guns she knocked one guy’s head back with her fists while simultaneously breaking the jaw of the dude behind her with her steel toed boot.  They both hit the floor with a thump, and Barb quickly started down the stairs in case anyone started up to check it out.

She could see a dim light pooling at the bottom of the stairs, but there were no shadows or voices.  The floor was concrete and cheap wood paneling came into view as she carefully descended.  To the right she saw a dark hallway.  To the left the concrete disappeared into worn, stained carpet after about ten feet.  She could see the walls open up into a large room and shadows moving around on the walls.

Barb stepped back up the stairs and shut the light off.  A chorus of grumbles rose out of the room to the left.

“Nick!” someone shouted.  “Go turn the light back on!”

“Why doesn’t Tony do it?”  She heard the smack of a slap and someone yelped in pain.

“That’s why,” a deep voice told him softly.

Someone, she assumed Nick, grumbled down the hallway toward her.  As he stepping in front of the stairs and reached up to check the bulb, Barb slipped her arm around his neck in a choke hold and noiselessly cut off his wind pipe.  When he was unconscious she lowered him carefully to the floor.

“Nick?” another voice called into the darkness.  “Nick!”

Barb slid down the hall.  Slipping her night vision on, she scanned the room.  There were five guys spread out holding guns.  They weren’t panicking, but were carefully spreading out and standing quietly.  It looked like a mix of the last mob guys, and the Joker’s hired help.  Barb knew the hardest part would be keeping them from accidentally shooting each other.

She pulled two batarangs out, aiming carefully she tensed her muscles prepared to jump.  Standing in the doorway, a clear shot for all five Barb shouted.

“Hey!”  She jumped to the side immediately as gun fire filled the room.  She threw the two batarangs, knocking the guns out of the hands of the two guys in the back.  She spun and kicked down, the gun in the guys closest to her hitting the floor.  Still moving she grabbed the gun of the guy next to him and snapped his wrist as she disarmed him before dropping the clip, and emptying the chamber, swinging her arm up and launching the gun at the forehead of the last one still armed.

The guy hit by the gun dropped to one knee, while the guy whose wrist she had snapped stumbled back, clutching his arm in pain.  Of the other three, two pulled knives from somewhere and the third flipped a flashlight on.  Barb’s eyes teared as the sudden light blinded her, and a fist connected with her jaw.  Her head snapped to the side, and she managed to block one knife but the second jabbed into her side.

She whipped the night vision off, and brought her elbow down on the forearm holding the knife in her side.  Barb knew it hadn’t hit anything vital, it just hurt like a sonofabitch, and she pulled it out, flipped it in her hand and nailed the guy with the flashlight in the thigh.  She’d always been proud of her aim.

Grabbing the wrist of the man with the last knife, she pulled him forward off balance and brought her knee up into his nose.  She felt it break and kicked out into his gut, knocking the wind out of him.  He dropped on the floor, out of the fight.  Broken wrist rejoined the fight now, but he was trying too hard to keep his bad arm away from her.  Barb dropped, sweeping his legs out from under him and brought her heel down on his forehead.  He didn’t get up.

The dude she’d stunned with the gun was up again, which meant she was still fighting three, but only one wasn’t hurt or wobbling on his feet.  She dropped the wobbly one, he should have just stayed down the first time, and the second guy--the one she’d disarmed a moment ago--swung at her wildly.  She dodged his punch easily catching his arm in a half-nelson while she got her forearm around his neck and choked him out.  She dropped him on the floor, turned to deal with the flashlight holding dude, and felt something knock her off her feet.  Belatedly she heard the gunshot echo off the concrete floor.

Barb hated getting shot.

He hobbled up to her prone form, his wounded leg not taking much weight and smirked as he pointed the gun at her head.

Barb rolled her feet up and knocked the gun from his hand, then completed her backwards somersault, coming to her feet and knocking out his teeth before she scissor-kicked his bleeding wound.  His mouth gaped open in a gasp of pain, and she finished him off with an elbow to the face. 

She hated being shot.

Barb turned back to the door, ready to figure her way through without getting herself and Batman killed when it swung open in front of her.  She held her side, her face carefully concealing her horror at what she saw.

“Oh it’s the girl!” Joker cackled.  He stood straight back from the door, next to a bloodied Batman, strapped to an old electric chair.  Blood dripped out of his mask onto his ripped costume.  Tiny pieces of metal were sticking out all over his chest, arms, and legs. His head sagged down, and Barb honestly couldn’t tell if he was biding him time, or too hurt to fight.

The four bosses and two remaining goons were lined up around the room.  The Joker stood next to Batman, some sort of electrical box in his hand laughing gleefully as Barb stood still trying to figure out her next move.

“Come on in Girly-girl,” the Joker invited her.  “This party’s a blast!”  He pushed a button and electricity flowed through the chair.  Bruce’s muscles clenched as he spasmed, but his groan of pain was weak.  Barb felt her own heart clench in her chest looking at him.  She needed to get him out of there.  Now.

Carefully, using her peripheral vision to watch everyone in the room, Barb approached.  She stopped when she was even with the door jamb, looking for an out, some weakness she could exploit.

“Oh he’s well done this time sugar butt,” the Joker mocked her.  “All you Bat Brats are good.  Maybe you could take these mob mopes out, but can you take me out before old Batsy here gets southern fried?!”

Barb’s eyes kept scanning.  A plan formed.  It was a long shot, and probably if it did work Bruce would fire her later anyway, but it was a chance.

“The suit’s insulated,” Barb told the Joker.  “You’ll hurt him but you won’t kill him.”

“You’re bluffing!” Joker challenged her, his mad eyes boring into hers.  Barb kept her best poker face in place.  His twisted lips broke into a smile.

“Bullet to the brain it is then!” he yelled, pulling a gun from his pants.  Barb started moving as soon as he reached for his gun. 

She threw a flash bomb, hopefully disorienting everyone in the room, and whipped a batarang at the Joker’s hand.  His shot went wide and he cursed her as he pushed the button on the box. 

“Everyone’s favorite choice, Bat Bitch!” he hissed as he threw the box across the room and took off out the other door.

Barb didn’t hesitate; she dove for the box, turning the electricity off as she rolled into the wall.  One of the thugs pointed his gun at her, still squinting and disoriented and she rolled across the room while he fired at her.  She pulled a knife and sliced through the rope tying Bruce to the chair before a bullet from the thug nailed her shoulder.  A hiss of pain slipped out and her arm went numb, but Barb pushed Bruce out of the chair to the floor before diving back towards the first guy.  The gunfire was deafening as both goons unloaded at her moving form.  This was not her best day ever.

She ran up the wall next to the dude, confusion making him stop firing for a second, and dropped behind him.  Before he could turn around she brought her hand down into his neck.  One down.  The four bosses had flown out of the room as soon as Barb dropped her flashbomb; as long as she didn’t die here at the end, she and Bruce were home free.

As she turned and started moving at the last guy, he moved his gun away from her and pointed it instead at Bruce’s head.  Barb’s breath lodged in her chest.

Click.

He was out of ammo. Not losing a second she pulled a batarang out, her last she noticed, and flipped it right between his eyes.  She was furious at herself for nearly getting Bruce killed and was more than happy to take it out on the guy dumb enough to point a gun at his head.

While the man was holding his head were she had cracked him, Barb swung her fist, knocking his head to the side viciously.  She was a flurry of kicks and punches, he dropped to his knees, his face a bloody mess.  Barb reared back, his blood on her fist, and a hand grabbed her arm from behind.

“Enough,” Bruce’s voice, barely more than a whisper, said from behind her.  She spun, catching him before he could fall down again, as the thug hit the ground.

Barb looked at him for a moment, her side protesting as she took his weight.  He was covered in blood, his cape in tatters.  It looked like the specially designed material had absorbed the bulk of the blast, but he was still nearly dead.  He would be dead if she didn’t get him back to the cave for medical attention soon.

“Come on,” Barb said moving them toward the door.  “How did you let yourself get blown up?”

“Thinking…about…you,” he whispered.  Barb wondered if he even knew what he was saying.

They were silent except for their harsh breathing as they moved slowly out of the basement.  The Batmobile thundered softly outside the building, activated by remote. 

“I’ll…drive,” Bruce pushed out.

“Shut up.”  Barb lowered him into the passenger side.  His eyes were closed before she had maneuvered out of the alley.  She concentrated on driving, her own injuries forgotten.  He’d been thinking about her.  And it had nearly killed him.  He was never going to forgive her for this.

Chapter 18

Alfred was tight lipped as Barb helped Bruce up to the stainless steel table they kept in the cave for medical purposes.  The same table she and Bruce--Barb cut her thought off.  Was she ever going to be able to look at that table without blushing?

Alfred took some of Bruce’s weight, and Barb fought to keep her breathing even as her torso throbbed.  She would patch herself up; other than the knife wound she just had some nasty bruises from the bullets.  Bruce was still fighting for consciousness; Barb guessed he had a concussion.  His armor and cape seemed to have protected him from the shrapnel and blast, but he was still bleeding pretty badly from a cut along his scalp, and a busted nose.

Barb pushed her cowl back as Bruce lay on the table.  She peeled his uniform away as Alfred expertly cut along the seams with a scalpel.  Together they took the Kevlar off his chest and Barb went to work on his boots.  His chest and stomach were a mottled mess.  Bruises were already competing for space, and a myriad of tiny cuts and knicks criss-crossed the already scarred terrain.  Alfred draped a towel across Bruce’s lap, sliced the lining of his pants, and peeled off the bottom part of his costume, handing Barb the bloody rags.

“Into the incinerator if you please,” he told her.  By the time Barb came back to the table, Alfred had cleaned the cuts, washed off the dried blood, and sutured the larger cut on the left side of Bruce’s face, just behind the hair line.  His nose had stopped bleeding and, all things considered, he looked remarkably better.  Barb took her first deep breath in days as she sagged against the table.

“He will be just fine, Miss,” Alfred told her.  “No doubt it looked worse than it was.”

“He was so weak Alfred,” she whispered.  “I was so worried.”

“You brought him home,” Alfred said kindly.  “Now let’s get you taken care of before you fall down.”

“I’m fine,” Barbara waved him off, even as she swayed slightly on her feet.

“I beg to differ,” Alfred said more sternly.  “You are leaving a puddle of blood on my floor.”

“Whoops,” Barb laughed, then stumbled.  Alfred caught her and sat her down in the nearby chair. 

“Easy Miss,” he told her.  Barb obligingly peeled her top over her head and shucked her own Kevlar off.  She sat in her black sports bra and tried not to fall asleep as Alfred looked over her knife wound. 

The iodine stung, but it wasn’t anything Barb wasn’t used to.  He applied some topical before stitching it together; the wound wasn’t big, just messy.  When Alfred was done he examined her quickly--bruising shoulder and sternum, but the Kevlar had stopped the bullets.  She was going to be sore, again, but neither of them were in the hospital.

Barb stared at Bruce’s sleeping face the whole time--her fear at not saving him and her worry that she almost got him killed finally hit her like a truck.  Should she give up on their attraction?  Could she fight it?  If she was honest with herself, did she want to?

She couldn’t stop being Batgirl; Barb knew the loss of that would shatter her.  She might be a librarian, but she wasn’t made to live a sedentary life.  The idea of never swinging between the buildings again, never feeling the rush of battle was unthinkable.

Bruce’s eyes blinked open, his gaze locked with hers, unreadable, as Alfred finished looking her over.

“Well,” Alfred told the both of them, standing up and taking off his surgical gloves, “I believe, if the two you promise not to kill yourselves before the night is out, I will return to waxing the foyer.”

Barb smiled weakly as Bruce sat up, his eyes narrowing with the pain.

“Thank you Alfred,” Bruce rumbled quietly. 

“Very good Master Bruce, Miss Gordon.”  Alfred bowed to them both and quietly exited the cave.

Bruce and Barbara sat there and stared at each other in silence.  Barb broke eye contact first, dropping her eyes to the ground as she struggled to gather her courage.  She knew what she had to do, but the thought of it terrified her.