Chapter 7 - Epilogue

FOUR DAYS LATER

"Thanks for joining us on this Wednesday evening, I'm Trent Irving."

"And I'm Sarah Allister. Our top story today: Gotham City district attorney Carl Finch announced limited details on a conviction for the shooting at a private club in Old Town Gotham last week that ended with the destruction of a dining room and a late-night emergency evacuation. We now know a twenty-seven year old woman has been held by police in connection to the shooting; the suspect will not be named until her arraignment next week. Eight were injured and two were wounded in the panic, including the club's owner, Anthony Marchetti, who suffered a broken tibia. All are in stable condition.`

"Police are still investigating if this incident was related to the destruction of Marchetti's luxury highrise apartment downtown earlier during the same night. Gotham City Police Commissioner James Gordon says the authorities are considering the explosion an accident, and not an act of terrorism. Fire Department investigators confirmed that the explosion was triggered by a sudden gas leak that scattered debris and broken glass from the 30th floor apartment, miraculously resulting in no casualties and only minor injuries to pedestrians below.

"I was... I was just walking with my sister then... blam!... everyone's running, we duck under... under that awning right there. Then this car, out of nowhe—"


The news feed on the massive array of screens in the cave beneath Wayne Manor froze as Batman noticed Barbara behind him somehow and paused the footage. It unnerved her how easily he could sense her presence even when she was trying to be quiet. The woman on the screen being interviewed was frozen in the middle of a wild gesture, her arms pantomiming the chaos from that night.

"Barbara. Take a look at this," Batman said. His deep baritone seemed to echo forever all around them. Barbara swallowed and stepped closer as he touched a few controls. The screen went black for a moment, then blinked back to life in a different form.

Now, on the screens, a woman sat handcuffed to an interrogation room table; GCPD Precinct 14, Barbara thought. Old Town Gotham. She was beautiful, even with worn-out, dry makeup. Her body language was squirrely and nervous beneath a facade of calm disinterest. A man's voice spoke calmly to her, determined to chip away at that facade.


"State your name, please?"

“For the last time: Catwoman.”

“...Your legal name, miss?”

"Lillian Portola."

"Miss Portola, we're going to ask you some questions. Just want to make sure you und—"

"—You've asked me a thousand questions. You don't have to explain the concept of what a question is to me anymore, thanks."

"Tell me about the nature of the social club, please."

"God, I've told you a dozen times now. You get off on hearing about this or something? You take these recordings home and play with yourself while the wife's asleep?"

"We're just trying to get the facts straight, Miss Portola."

"It's a sex club. People go inside and fuck. Have a nice day."

"Can you elaborate?"

"Well, detective, when a boy and a girl really like each other, his penis gets really hard, and he sticks it in her vagi—"


"That's not her," Barbara interrupted.

Batman didn't look back at her as he froze the video feed of the woman. A phantom sound echoed from the depths of the cave. It made everything seem a little darker, and made Barbara feel a little smaller. The system of subterranean caverns was massive and incredibly deep, and the spotlights still left everything too dark to see the ceiling. They were alone on a sea of shadows, stranded on a little island lit by an artificial sun.

"Why not," Batman both said and asked.

She strode forward and squinted at the still image of Lillian Portola, the newly unmasked Catwoman.

"The face... is a near match. Close, but not the same," Barbara began. "Catwoman is flippant and... well, catty, but... the voice is off as well. No: the speech. The cadence of her voice. The real Catwoman pronounces her "ah's" a bit more too, like she's affecting a Mid-Atlantic accent or something. This woman moves differently... shoulders stay too far back. Posture is too stiff. She’s putting on a show of a person putting on a show."

"The computer agrees with you," Batman said. "We don't have a lot of biometric data on Catwoman. Cowl recordings, low-res security footage. Enough to train the gait recognition algorithm. It's only forty percent confident."

Barbara knew her eye was just as sharp as any algorithm. She'd trained it in the most up-close and personal circumstances possible, after all. But the computer was Batman's many-eyed lens into the world at large — his oracle, of sorts. It always felt like the screens and the knowledge they held were only meant for him, and they always held more secrets than anyone else could ever know. Barbara was just an annoying child looking over her father's shoulder as he worked. And, just like a busy father, she hadn't seen him in days. She knew why, though, and she hated the way that thought made her feel.

Barbara squinted for a moment, wondering: "How'd you get this?"

"Jim," Batman stated. "They've been trying to get a solid confession out of her for days. She wouldn't say anything concrete. He asked for my help."

"How long did it take?" Barbara asked, smiling a bit. She fantasized that she was wrong, that maybe this Lillian Portola really was Catwoman, and imagined the shock in her eyes as a demon appeared in the dark interrogation room next to her instead of a police detective.

"Not long," Batman said, still as a statue in his chair. His cowl was off, but the armor was on, and his steely blue eyes were cold and emotionless as the computer. The man had thousands of dollars worth of comfortable suits and loungewear in a half dozen closets upstairs, but he preferred to wear his bat-themed battle armor on his downtime. It didn’t make him easier to talk to.

"What'd she tell you?" Barbara asked.

"You tell me,” he answered. Batman liked to do these sorts of deductive exercises with her. Things to help Barbara keep her detective senses sharp, or make them sharper.

"You dropped a detail about something from one of your encounters with her before," Barbara said. "Or maybe a few details: one true, two false. She took one of the false ones, or misspoke the real one."

"Go on," Batman said.

"She... swapped masks with the real Catwoman on the night of the job. Catwoman made a deal with her to... no. Catwoman blackmailed her into doing it?"

Batman finally turned his gaze to hers. The light framed his face, and for a moment, he looked gentle. He waited: Which is it? his eyes said.

"A little bit of both. She's a pathological liar," Barbara answered. "One of those people who confesses to a crime just for the celebrity. But Catwoman wouldn't leave something like this to chance. Lillian might like lying to police to act like Catwoman, but she won't take hard prison time for her. Catwoman has to have leverage on her."

Batman nodded. "I couldn't get her to give up that part, so it must be something important. If Lillian is compromised, Catwoman might pull the trigger if she gets released. More incentive for her to lie, and keep lying. Jim's holding on to her for now with a public mayhem charge. Won't last for long. But I've got no leads."

Barbara swallowed. He might have some leads if Batgirl hadn't tried running headlong into a crime scene with her shoelaces tied together. A familiar ball of lead grew heavier in her stomach. "Oh. Yeah."

He turned his body to her, now. The chair hissed quietly as it spun. He was calm and relaxed, and the unreadable stillness  in his body language made Barbara want to step away. "I'm just going over the footage, trying to see if I missed something. I've been hunting down Catwoman's contacts, scraping over her safehouses. Anything you can offer would help."

"I don't know," Barbara sighed, sensing where the conversation was going. "I'm... I'm sorry."

Quietly, Batman pushed a glowing key on the interface panel. A familiar pair of voices spoke over a slight hiss of static. The first was her own.


"No, you're right. You're right. About everything."

"Batgirl?"

"The notebook is my... is Police Commissioner Gordon's."

"...Okay."

"You know, the Commissioner Gordon with the big, glowing signal? The one of this symbol that we all wear? Who likes to meet with Batman? And share notes about his current investigations?"

"Oh. You mean the Batman who makes a lifestyle of being ten steps ahead of everyone? And who would suddenly be ten steps behind everyone if a notebook full of his plans with the police commissioner got out?"*

"...Yeah, that's the guy!"

"How'd Catwoman get—"


By the end of it, Barbara's jaw muscles were aching. Her chin jutted out as she pursed her lips and blinked back tears. And all of a sudden, it was day one again. She'd just been standing at Marchetti's table. She'd just watched Catwoman point at the security camera in the lobby. She'd just stumbled up to the roof after weeping like a child. She'd just failed her mentor.

"I..." she began, her hesitation likely telling him as much as her words. "I know I don't... I mean—"

"—The notebook is encrypted," Bruce said.

Barbara didn't remember him standing up; she didn't remember him putting his hands on her shoulders. She couldn't form words for a long space of moments. Her eyes were drawn to his for a moment; he'd handed her the notebook. No: another notebook. An old copy, one he'd used with her father another time. She opened it, and almost expected to find another note from Catwoman inside.

There were words, yes. Notes. But they were jumbled and mixed, like English written in another alphabet. None of it made any sense.

"I... what? I don't... what..."

"Jim... your father... we agreed that passing notes electronically was risky. Things could be digitally intercepted, and the GCPD still has some bad cops we haven't identified yet. So, paper notebooks only. Obviously that's not safe either. Jim came up with the idea for a cipher. Simple and clever. Regular rotation for a new one. Anyone who managed to get a notebook would have nothing. With the most recent cipher, only a few pages would be valuable."

"So... Catwoman has nothing," Barbara said.

Bruce nodded. "A meaningless stack of paper."

Barbara nodded as well. It was a failure, and not a failure.

"I'm sorry we haven't talked about it," Bruce continued. "I've been busy as Batman these past few nights. Had to finish up damage control. Check off my list of loose ends. Lillian is on that list."

"I know," Barbara whispered. "I understand."

"The notebook is not, Barbara," he said, his voice full of unexpected understanding and warmth. "We're safe. Jim is safe."

"Okay," she said, trying not to whimper. "Okay." She wanted to fall into his arms; she wanted to fall onto the floor. Or, better yet, to plummet into the darkest recesses of the cave and be swallowed by the void.

"Everything else I have on that list is tied to you," Batman said plainly, letting his hands leave a ghost of warmth on her shoulders. Barbara only nodded in response, focusing all her energies to holding the pain inside herself, so he continued.

"Here's what I know, Barbara," he began. He didn't speak at length often, so when he had a long speech prepared, it was terribly unsettling.

"I know why you went after the notebook. I even know why you wanted to go after it solo, even after being warned how dangerous Catwoman is. It's because you thought your team was under an imminent threat. You made a call. It was the wrong call, but you made it to save your team. Part of the fault was not knowing that Catwoman was counting on that."

Barbara nodded. She knew that Bruce was, before all else, a tactician. If he hadn't listened to the audio of that night and gone over all the angles — how and why Catwoman acted, how she and Dick had responded — he wouldn't be the Batman. She kept her eyes on his and took her lumps.

"I know you ran a mostly clean op... right up to the point where you stepped on Catwoman's hook. I know you and Dick worked the evidence. But I know that Catwoman had you from the start. I know she wanted you to chase her without having you realize you weren't getting any closer to her. That every step you took was on a treadmill."

Barbara's eyebrows lowered a bit, heavy from the shame and guilt until she forced them back up to his own. Eyes up, she heard his voice say in her head. He didn't work with sad, whiny girls. He worked with soldiers.

"Yes, sir," she said.

"I also know what kind of club Anthony Marchetti was running," Bruce said calmly. "It was a sex club, more or less."

Barbara wanted to sigh, deeply and with her entire body. To breathe all the air out of her until she was nothing, like an empty balloon. Bruce pushed another button on the computer's multi-touch interface panel.

On the screen, Catwoman sauntered into the lobby of the Gotham City Hedonist Society. She reached out her hand to the concierge, who kissed it as though she were a duchess. They spoke for a moment, and he produced a note card and a pen for her to write with as she flirted with one of the doormen. The man took the note, sealed it, and had his guards usher Catwoman into the dressing room. There were multiple points where her hands weren't quite visible. Where she might have concealed the notebook behind the concierge desk or with one of the doormen. Or, where she might not have at all.

Then, blurring, ghostly motions as everyone's body language grew terse and quick: fast forwarding. Barbara watched the timecode increase by four minutes before Batgirl burst into the lobby, clutching her cape tight as the speed of the video cooled to a slightly more normal rate. She mouthed words to the concierge — there was no audio — and looked threateningly at the guards. She laughed incredulously as he pointed at the sign. He drew up the phone, and put it down as she urged him not to dial it. Then, she went through the door. The screen went black.

"I also know that, when it comes to criminals like Catwoman, that after 'The Red Carpet' eventually you reach 'The Stage'," Bruce said. "You remember?" Barbara nodded.

"I know this was Catwoman's 'Stage' for you, Barbara," he said, the finality of the moment drawing near in his words. "But the only thing I don't know is what happened after you went inside."

Barbara wondered if she looked terrified or secretive. It was probably both. She knew she couldn't hide the expression on her face from him either way, even with her best poker face let alone the trembling mask of emotion she wore now, so she just stared and breathed.

"I've got nothing on whatever went on for the next hour inside the building. This lobby footage was all they had. Marchetti's security system isn't WayneTech, so no backdoor or cloud backups. It's an old minidisc system, and the disc from that hour inside the club is missing. Now, I have only two questions to ask you, and I need you to answer truthfully. You did everything you did to protect your team that night. I need you to do that again now."

Barbara's body was telling her to cry, but it was as though the plumbing to her eyes was disconnected suddenly as the moment of truth arrived. She was numb. Empty.

"Yes, sir," she said.

"Do you have the disc?" Bruce asked.

Barbara nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Good," he said. "I'm guessing you got it instead of tracking Catwoman as she escaped because you didn't want to compromise yourself, or the team. You did the right thing."

He added: "Have Alfred collect it and bring it to me, please."

Barbara pursed her lips, compressed the twisting bile in her stomach, and nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Barbara," he began carefully. "You have my word that I will not look at it under any circumstances."

She didn't realize her eyes were staring at the floor until she looked up at him and saw the honesty in his gaze. It surprised her, that caring, concerned look in his eyes, and she must have turned her head like a confused puppy. "I'll transcode it to an encrypted file for your eyes only, destroy the disc, and ask you to look at it when you're ready. That leads me to my next question, which I think we both know the answer to:"

"Are you okay?" Bruce asked. His eyes were sad and sincere.

The word 'yes' hung at the back of her throat, another drop of lead to add to the ball in her stomach. Barbara was self-aware enough to know that the fact it was there in her gut was enough. It would be so easy, though. Yes, I'm fine. Ready for duty.

"No," Barbara said.

Bruce nodded for a long time. He seemed disturbed, like he wanted to punch something for a moment but didn't. Then, he calmed, and nodded again. He asked for her hands, and she offered them to him. They were warm somehow, despite the coldness in the cave.

"Did she hurt you?" he asked in earnest. Then, almost threateningly: "Did anyone hurt you."

Barbara thought, but only for a very short moment. "No," she said. "I'm... it wasn't like that, really."

Bruce sighed, and nodded with a stiff lip. The other perspective of that night revealed itself to Barbara suddenly: Bruce Wayne couldn't forgive himself if he lost James Gordon's daughter in some gangster's sex den. That was what this was.

And, that made it so that what happened next didn't come as a surprise.

"You know that either way, you're off-duty, indefinitely," Bruce said.

Barbara nodded. It made sense. And, it made the soles of her feet tingle like they were on fire. It was a fire she'd earned, in any case.

"If you're not hurt, but you're not well, then..." Bruce stumbled over the words for a moment. It was very human, for the Batman. "I can't ask you what happened inside. That's not the kind of thing... that you should talk to someone like me about."

“Someone like you?” Barbara asked.

He let her hands go, and tapped another sequence into the computer. A picture of a beautiful woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and a happy, professional smile appeared, her contact information listed to the side of her image. The entire thing shrank to the size of a card, and was whisked away to an icon of a yellow Bat-symbol with the letters 'BG' inside.

"I just sent you the info to a friend of mine," Bruce began. "Dinah. Lives across town, but she's worth the trip. Her parents are cops, too. She's got a good ear."

Barbara squinted and curled a corner of her mouth. She suddenly felt like she was listening to one of her father's lectures. "You're sending me to a shrink?" she asked.

"A friend," Bruce corrected. "Someone a bit more... feminine than me."

"Ah," Barbara's inner and outer voice said in sync — Bruce didn’t know what had happened to Barbara in that room, and he didn’t want to. Could he actually be as nervous about this as she was?

"Just... promise me you won't keep this inside, Barbara," Bruce said, and a seriousness chilled his tone. "Whatever happened in there... is yours. But you should talk to someone. Believe me when I say that holding something inside you forever... it doesn't make you get better. It makes you get worse."

Barbara's eyebrows wrinkled as she considered the man. Sometimes, he was even more mysterious as Bruce Wayne than he was as Batman. "Okay," she said.

"Call. Make an appointment, tomorrow if she's free. If you decide you don't like her, we'll find someone else," Bruce said. "But I can't have you in the field if you're not well."

"I know," Barbara said.

"Good," Bruce concluded.

He squeezed her hands one last time, and they parted ways quietly, as they almost always did. But the exchange left her wondering for quite a while whether it was Batman or Bruce she'd actually been talking to. Batman was dark and frightening; Bruce, just a little bit less so. There was also the character of "Bruce Wayne" that he put on for social gatherings and fundraisers; that was the smiling, empty-headed bachelor with more bank account balance than sense. What he'd shown her just now wasn't any of those images of him. Maybe it was another layer to the man. One that he didn't show to anyone unless it was important.

Striding toward the powerlift that would take her back to ground level, Barbara stole one last look at the Batgirl suit and said her silent goodbye. It hung quietly in its clear locker, and even though the mask's eyes were empty and dark, they seemed to follow her as she passed. Barbara searched for meaning in those eyes, but looked away before she could find any.

—

Dinah, whoever she was, seemed like a nice woman. She had a very warm, professional voice. Barbara didn't know how close Dinah was, and so she'd told her over the phone that she needed someone to talk to about "police family stuff," and was given a time at a coffee shop next week. Then, when Dinah asked who had referred her and Barbara named their mutual night-stalking friend, that appointment was eagerly moved to the first thing in the morning at Dinah's loft.

The bed in Barbara's own guest room at Wayne Manor was a blessing. When she'd first been brought into the fold, Barbara remembered wondering at first if the massive, multi-bedroom sprawl was just a barracks for dozens of Bat-soldiers that Bruce was housing right under Gotham City's nose. He wasn't — it was only a dark, quiet house for just such a man. And, for the moment, that suited Barbara just fine. She spread her arms and legs wide and stared at the ceiling above the four poster bed until she drifted off for a nap. The dark, dreamless sleep held her like an old friend, until the knocking at the door separated them.

"I thought a bit of dinner might be helpful, if not satiating, Master Barbara," Alfred announced in his erudite accent as Barbara peeked at him around the edge of the door. She was expecting Dick to come by and try to console him eventually, or this new Bruce to come and unsettle her with his warm demeanor. She was glad to be wrong.

"Sure, Alfred," she said, opening the door for him. "Thank you. You... you shouldn't have."

He entered, and set a large, covered silver platter on a table in the tremendous bedroom. "Oh, please do not mistake my kind offers for requests, Master Barbara," he said as he walked. "You will eat, now. Starved guests reflect poorly on me as a butler."

"You're the boss," Barbara said through pursed lips.

"Master Bruce has provided the white sedan for your use this week in visiting with Master Dinah," he added. "Do bring it back in, at most, one piece." Alfred placed the keys aside the dinner tray, and turned to leave, sensing Barbara's need for quiet privacy. She really would miss him the most. But a corner of her mouth wrinkled in disappointment — she wasn't surprised at the car she'd been allowed to borrow, but it never hurt to ask for something more.

"I was really hoping for the convertible. Can you ask him for that black one?" she begged. "Tell him... it's for my self-care? Convertibles with twelve cylinders are really therapeutic."

"Surely it is surprising that the world's most secretive man has trust issues in regards to his sportscars," Alfred explained dryly, "but nonetheless, the white sedan awaits."

Bruce, of course, had probably known that question would come up. Barbara smiled, her lips squeezed tight to avoid laughing outright. Alfred mirrored with, perhaps, a fraction of the smile. Maybe, right now at least, dry British cynicism was better therapy than a coastline drive in a convertible.

She hugged the wry old man, and he hugged back. "Thanks, Alfred. I'll miss you. And... yeah. I'll be back soon."

"See to it that you are, Master Barbara," he said, nodding. "This ghastly old house has a wreak of testosterone about it. There's not been a woman's touch here in far too long. Ring down to the kitchen if you have need of me." He smirked, and left quietly.

Barbara may have spent twenty minutes in the shower, or twenty hours. She wasn't sure what the water system for a mansion looked like, but she stayed there soaking in the heat and the steam until she was sure there would be no more hot water left in the whole house if she kept going. But it was necessary, she thought, to hold some sort of ceremony to commemorate Batgirl's death, or at least her long hibernation in the cave. She wasn't sure how long Bruce would keep her from putting the armor on again; she wasn't sure if she deserved it at all. It should have been a shameful thought, but it felt strangely like a lifted weight. There was a sureness, also, that what Bruce told her wasn’t wrong: Barbara had to get her head right if Batgirl was going to exist again. And Barbara needed it first, even if Batgirl did too. Because for now, Batgirl was gone; Barbara was all that remained. That rebirth deserved a baptism of some kind, and a very long, very hot shower worked just fine.

But no matter how many showers Barbara took, she couldn't seem to wash away the thought of everything that had happened with Catwoman. It was more than just the nagging sensation that she couldn't get the smell of olive oil out of her skin: Catwoman was, at best, an unsolved mystery. For one, they still didn't know who she really was, despite the dark-haired, green-eyed decoy she'd left them at the Old Town precinct. But there was something deeper than that — even if they knew Catwoman's name, even if they'd put her behind bars, Barbara still wouldn't know who she was.

Was she the Catwoman who brought Barbara in that night to help take down Anthony Marchetti? She'd probably stolen something important from his apartment before she'd blown it up both to sabotage his operation and to spite him. Barbara remembered the surprise, the dizzying confusion at finding her own Batarang pressed between their naked bodies: 'Be ready with the throwing knife.' Then, the next twist of confusion as she put on a sex show in front of Marchetti and his men, featuring the two of them and everything but the sex. Or was it sex? Barbara remembered how willing Catwoman's lips were, how her touch was anything but fake. She remembered how 'Play along' and 'Have fun with it' were Catwoman's flirtatious mantras throughout the whole episode. And, she remembered how the unmistakable guilt in Catwoman's eyes glistened with the realization that she'd made Barbara orgasm in front of everyone. Then, the burning fire of betrayal in her eyes when Barbara stopped playing by her rules. The hate that smoldered even deeper after she saved the thief from Marchetti's massive, beastly enforcer. The spiteful revenge that burned even brighter as Catwoman pointed at the security camera in the main hall.

She saw that hate and that vengeance, and remembered the other side of the coin: she could also be the Catwoman who blew up Marchetti's apartment with Robin inside, and let them keep the assumption that the apartment was hers. She needed a scapegoat at best, and a dead scapegoat otherwise. Something that would deflect Marchetti later on to point his vengeance towards Batman's people instead of just Catwoman. And, of course, she'd stolen her father's notebook, used the explosion to isolate Barbara, and dangled the notebook as bait. Then, Catwoman had brought Batgirl somewhere that she knew would mortify and humiliate her; regardless of all the other things, that had worked very well. Batgirl had stripped naked in front of a bunch of Gotham City gangsters and debased herself like one of his trafficked women at an audition. And Catwoman, amongst all the things she had to gain from Marchetti's loss, had made sure that Batgirl's shame was in her loot bag no matter what. Though it had taken Barbara a lot of thinking to cleanse her mind of that failure, it was forever stolen, and she would never have it back.

"So which one were you?" Barbara whispered to the water. Catwoman was both, and perhaps she was neither — even Bruce had a face Barbara hadn't seen until now.

The food Alfred had left was still covered in its silver platter, only now it was tepid and sweaty. She took a bite of the carefully-prepared pasta inside anyway, licking the sauce from her fingertips; his food was always delicious, even an hour or a day later. It deserved better than to be forgotten.

Barbara rolled her eyes and savored the taste as she threw her towel aside onto the bed and gathered lotion into her hand, spreading a thin coat all over her skin. The cool cream felt good after the hot rainstorm she'd stood in for who knows how long. Barbara was so relaxed that she didn't notice the door was open until the keys clanked onto the table next to the tray Alfred had left.

Dick Grayson had taken four steps into the room before he realized it wasn't his. "Whoa, Barb! Uh, sorry, damn it wrong room—"

"—Dick! Oh, no no, you're okay!" she said, scampering. The body towel wasn't nearby, so her hands flashed to cover her modesty as the other towel wrapped around her long red hair threatened to fall over. Then, it did.

"Sorry!" Dick said several dozen times. He'd averted his eyes and made a screen out of his hand for good measure. He stumbled back toward the door, keeping the palm next to his eyes even though his back was to her.

It wasn't the first time one of them had made the mistake of walking into the wrong room; the hallways of Wayne Manor were labyrinthine, and the doors all looked very similar. They roomed next to each other, just in case one had to wake the other for patrols or the like, so it happened somewhat often. Never like this, though.

"So sorry!" Dick said, averting his eyes as he backpedaled, "I'll just... yeah. Goodnight—"

"—your keys. Don't forget your—"

"—right, sorry. Wow, what am I even—"

Barbara wasn't sure when the decision was made, or even if she'd made one. It wasn't something that had a cause and effect that way, at least not directly. She looked him over, and thought he looked tall and very handsome in his street clothes. His forearms flexed as he grabbed his keys from the table, and Barbara bit her lip more tightly than she wanted to. She saw his matted helmet hair and the motorcycle keys, wondered where he'd been riding that night, and wished she'd been with him, her chest squeezed into his back muscles as the motorcycle's engine growled beneath them.

"Dick?" Barbara said. "Wait!"

"Yeah?"

Barbara's arm was folded across her chest, covering as much of herself as she could, but she loosened her hold. The undersides of her breasts started to swell beneath, like droplets on a cold glass growing heavier, fuller. Her opposite hand was cupped tightly over her groin, and she was hunched over in embarrassment; but then, she wasn't. She pulled her hand away as she spread her stance a bit and cocked her hip to the side, offering him a better view. Devilish eyes gazed at him from under her eyelids, and she whipped her wet hair over her shoulders as if trying to reveal more of her body for him.

Most importantly, Barbara felt overjoyed. Glad that there was no shame. That all of it was terrifying, but in a good way, like the crest of a rollercoaster.

The silence between them lasted too long, and Dick turned his head until his eyes could see past the screen he'd made out of his palm. When he did, his jaw loosened a bit, and his hand went limp as it slowly floated down like a feather. His body language melted into relaxation, and the door quietly drifted shut behind him. Dick stared at Barbara from across the table where Alfred's food tray sat, and she stared right back, making sure she had his full attention.

Then, she smiled as she let her breasts slowly slide all the way out from under her forearm.

"Don't go, Dick," Barbara purred.

—
