Chapter 6 - The Encore

The weight of the large iron chandelier was enough to split the table in two. It caved through the middle, and Barbara vaulted into the air as her half of the wooden surface became a catapult. Sailing high over the dinner party, she keyed the night vision optics in her cowl, lighting up the lenses on her eyes, and landed in a tight crouch on the other side of the table.

It was time to introduce everyone to the real Batgirl.

As she surveyed the shapes and colors moving against the panel of pitch blackness, she saw that Catwoman had, of course, dodged uncannily out of the way of the falling object. Amidst the panic and shouting, Batgirl found her as a burst of yellow in a crouched shape not unlike her own, hiding off behind one of the chairs that hadn't fallen over as the gangsters dove away in fear. The resolution of the optics was high enough that Batgirl could see the hate beaming from Catwoman's eyes.

She'd have to wait her turn: all around them, chaos roiled. Screams and shouts were haunted by the long, low church bell ringing of the massive chunk of iron that had brought a sudden nightfall over the room. The gangster at the table's head opposite the towering Mister Z was the first to notice two white, devil eyes staring at him in the dark. But the fallen chandelier was as effective as a flashbang, and he was stunned from the sudden deprivation of senses followed by the sudden sensory overload. More importantly, all the men had been standing at Batgirl's request from earlier — now, none of them could get to their guns easily under the crushed table. So, all this stunned, confused man could do was yelp in terror as Batgirl brought a vicious snap kick to his chin. He dropped, and laid still.

One.

The man called Denny, to his merit, had jumped clear of the table, and had taken both his crushed laptop and his frightened whore with him. They were cowering far off to the side of the action, and he held her close with one arm as he shivered in fear. Batgirl felt pity for a moment, but rage and shame drowned it out — he'd looked at her while he climaxed into that girl's mouth. She'd done so willingly, but it was in the same way that Batgirl had put on a naked sex show with Catwoman. "Willingly." They both squealed in terror as Batgirl's eyes narrowed, and floated closer to them in the dark. Denny held up the woman as a shield as if to say: Take her, not me. Batgirl grabbed her by the wrist, moved her aside, and put a right cross onto Denny's jaw. His head wobbled like the speed bag back in the cave's workout room. She turned to the woman, and barked a command: “Hide.” The poor, terrified thing scrambled to the corner and curled into a ball.

Two.

Sensing something behind her, Batgirl stepped aside and bent low to make herself into a springboard. Squat muscles flexed as a naked gangster tumbled clumsily over her back, and she exploded upward, throwing him into the wall on top of the unconscious Denny. They were starting to track her now: the eyes were beacons in the dark. She wanted it that way — let them come. A second man behind the first lunged out to grab her as well, and she casually kneed him in the groin, then wrapped her hands around his head to pull another knee up into his nose. Each alternating knee strike landed in the space of a blink. The man doubled over in agony, and she finished him off with a uppercut forceful enough to stand him up. He didn't, though. Behind her, the man who she'd thrown into the wall tried for another blind charge, and won himself a perfectly-placed roundhouse kick. Loose teeth rattled on the wood floor like marbles.

Three. Four.

Another man was halfway under the table now, hiding and searching frantically for a gun, knowing that was probably his only chance. The stories of Bat-encounters circled through prisons and other criminal circles, and everybody liked to talk about what they'd do if they were ever in the room with the Bat. They all knew the lights went out, and then the fighting started. They all talked big. The ones that got their chance often hid under the tables. Batgirl dragged him out by an ankle, and he managed to kick her in the stomach with his free foot as he screamed and tried to bring the pistol in his shivering hand to bear. The trigger squeezed nervously, and then only after Batgirl had pinned his hand to the floor, pointing the barrel harmlessly up to the ceiling. Then, she quietly broke his wrist, snatched the gun, and rang his head against the floor. Her hands stripped the pistol in the space of a second — magazine, slide, chambered round — throwing them all in different directions. A security alarm triggered somewhere, and deep red emergency lights suddenly drowned the room in crimson.

Five.

Barbara’s heart screamed in her chest. Someone even screamed out loud in rage, and she realized only after the fact that it was her. Part of her knew it wasn't a healthy thought, but it felt so good to get her knuckles bloody. The adrenaline in her veins was like medicine. It was only then that Barbara noticed the tears muddying her optics, and switched them off. There was so much inside her after everything this night held: embarrassment, frustration, shame. She wanted to let all of it out, but it was quashed by the focused, boiling rage that was Batgirl. Barbara would just have to sit in the corner of her mind and cry quietly for a minute instead.

Pop. Another single gunshot, like a camera flash. Batgirl instinctively took cover behind a chair.

On the other side of the table, Catwoman had been busy. Four other men were down, motionless on the floor. A fifth had pulled a gun from under the table and fired, and Catwoman had just finished sidestepping the line of fire and putting a knife-edge strike into the shooter's throat. He choked, and Catwoman took the gun from his hand like a toy from a bratty child. She swept the man's legs out from under him, and planted a foot on his windpipe.

Then, Catwoman raised the gun at the silent, towering Mister Z.

This was the true checkmate then. Everything before had been a ploy for Batgirl to get Catwoman either injured from the chandelier fall or at least busy while she neutralized targets and advanced on Mister Z herself. He was the goal, after all; he was the endgame to all of this. With Catwoman armed, Batgirl was out. Game over.

The ogre had either slept through everything that had happened, or simply hadn't moved. In any case, little about him had changed; he held a very patient cat in one hand, and his manhood in the other. Only now, he was glaring at Catwoman. It was unsettling, like looking at a statue, looking away, and then finding it in a slightly different pose when you looked back.

Catwoman growled: "Drop. My. Cat."

Mister Z stood still and silent.

Catwoman pointed the gun at the man under her, and kneecapped him. A spray of red erupted from the man's leg, and it almost seemed colorless against the glowing emergency lights. He gargled in pain through the heel on his throat.

"No!" Batgirl screamed. "Damn it Catwoman, don't!"

Catwoman ignored her, and leveled the weapon at the big man again. "Do it!" she screamed, unhinged rage cracking her voice. Her eyes were wild and wide, and the pistol was still and silent in her hand.

Like an ancient archaeological puzzle had been solved, Mister Z's hand slowly opened while the rest of his statue-like form stood utterly still. Catwoman called her pet, and it jumped down to the floor and went to its mother. There, it purred at the foot that she wasn't torturing someone with.

"Go home, baby," Catwoman said sternly to her spy. "We'll talk later."

Batgirl had never seen an animal so well trained, even one that had technically failed at the mission it was trained for. Quietly, the animal bounded off to the side of the room, then scurried up the wall to an air vent she hadn't noticed before. Catwoman strode over the man she'd shot in the leg, crushing his windpipe as she advanced on Mister Z. The man choked and sputtered as he grasped pathetically at his knee for a moment before blacking out.

"Now then, Sleepyhead," Catwoman said as she pointed the gun at him and closed the gap. "What do you think I’m going to ask for ne—"

It happened in a flash: Mister Z grabbed Catwoman's hand. And not just her hand, but the gun, and half of her forearm as well. His palm was at least as big as a bear's paw. Catwoman screamed, and Mister Z threw her to the floor like a ragdoll.

"Catwoman, no!" Batgirl yelped.

She hit the ground like a sandbag, and Batgirl heard bones crunch. The gun spun away across the floor, and in another flash, the big man picked up Catwoman by the throat and held her aloft. Stunned from being bashed against the floor like a half-dead fish, she simply hung from his closed fist, limply swatting at his arm. Most of her face and all of her neck was crushed tightly in his grasp. Her eyes glassed, and slowly drifted shut. It was a horrid, brutal way to go.

Batgirl roared, and dove over the table.

She wasn't sure what would happen next, but she acted anyway, mostly on the pure adrenaline of seeing someone being strangled to death. Even if it was Catwoman, she didn't deserve that. Batgirl planted her feet on the edge of the table, coiled, and sprung, diving into a sure elbow strike to the ogre's temple.

The notebook fell to the floor, and Mister Z stepped on it with a massive foot.

Batgirl wasn't sure if she was just imagining Mister Z was fast because he barely moved at all, or if he actually had metahuman speed. The backhand came so hard and fast that it didn't matter. Batgirl spun backwards like a tennis ball serve returned hard, and bashed against the table she'd just jumped from. A squeak blew out of her lungs as she crumpled. The edges of her vision darkened, a black ghost hugging her from all sides.

She roared at it until it slinked away, and clambered to her feet. She didn't have time to black out now.

Then, suddenly, the Batarang appeared on the floor next to her. She gathered it up, flipped it to its weighted end, channeled whatever willpower she had left in her mind, and threw. It connected with Mister Z's forearm just so, severing the tendons that gripped. He didn't grunt in pain in the slightest, but his hand opened, and Catwoman fell two feet down. She slumped over as she hit the ground, gasping and coughing. The ogre picked the annoying toothpick out of his arm and flung it away, then reached down to pick up the woman he had to finish killing.

"Catwoman!" Batgirl screamed, diving back into the fight.

It was a horrible idea. Batgirl threw a combo into the big man's stomach and kidney, a series of blows that'd leave a normal man flat on his back. It distracted Mister Z from Catwoman, but his response was simply to grunt and grab Batgirl in the single tightest grapple she'd ever experienced in her life.

Her stomach wrapped inside the ogre's elbow, Batgirl squeezed every muscle she had to prevent her torso from caving in outright. She tried to push his arm away, but it felt like the last rep of a ten thousand pound bench press. The black ghost hugged her again too, coaxing her to just sleep for a little while. Catwoman's staggered coughing grew quieter, and the ringing in Batgirl's ears grew louder. But suddenly, she noticed something — Mister Z's arm was very slippery.

No. Batgirl was slippery.

She blew out her breath and folded more tightly into the fat of his stomach, then pushed down, sliding neatly along an olive oil slickened path straight to the floor. Anticipating the ragdoll grab-and-smash she'd seen him use on Catwoman before, Batgirl tumbled quickly away, pulling a slippery ankle through his fingers as he grasped and missed, but just barely.

Keeping the momentum of the fight, Batgirl grabbed the massive dining chair she'd landed next to, tucked her feet into the seatback, and rolled to the ground until the solid wood chair was on her feet and she was flat under it. She pressed with all the strength in her legs and sent it overhead toward Mister Z, kipping to her feet and diving after it.

The massive statue of a man caught it one-handed, but didn't see Batgirl in the blind spot that the chair eclipsed. She kicked the wooden weight with both legs, and it smashed into the big man's leg. He staggered, if only a little. Batgirl flipped, and landed in a tight crouch.

"Cat!" she shouted. "Lumberjack!"

It was a code word that she and Robin used when it was time to take down a much larger, stronger opponent. Somehow, Catwoman understood. Chop him down.

She grabbed a fallen chair of her own and leaned back, spinning it around her center of gravity like a throwing hammer. She let it fly at Mister Z's knee, and he took the blow. Again, he staggered.

Batgirl followed up with a diving kick to the same leg. Catwoman followed suit, sending a vicious snap kick past the man's massive, dangling member and straight into his groin. Batgirl kicked a pressure point on the inside of his thigh with enough force to send a punching bag mostly horizontal. Again, he staggered.

A synergy synchronized everything they did. Mister Z grasped and swung, one of the women dodged, and the other took advantage of the opening. Then, he grasped for the bee that had just stung him, only to get stung again from another angle. Joint strikes, push kicks, hammer blows. The ogre's swings came slower.

Finally, Catwoman dodged a slow grab, and grasped Z's arm in return, trying to pull him to the ground. Batgirl joined in, striking his knee and adding her own weight to the huge man's arm. Assisted by the force of his own clumsy swing, Z should have fallen over, but he was simply too strong. Batgirl screamed in rage as she climbed the man's arm like a fallen log. Jumping from atop the ogre's own shoulders, Batgirl turned all her force downard, and planted the elbow strike at his temple.

Down the monster went. And, out from under his massive foot, the notebook appeared on the floor.

Batgirl and Catwoman fell to their own exhausted, slumped crouches next to the unconscious body of their goliath. They both looked to the notebook, then to each other. An exploded apartment. Battered pride. Gangsters and whores. Shame and disgrace. Blood and broken bones. For all the trouble this small stack of paper had caused, Batgirl thought it should look bigger, or more important somehow. Diamond-encrusted, maybe. Something about how simple it was and how the secrets she lived and died on might be written inside flushed a chill over her skin.

"Take it," Catwoman said as she huffed with exhaustion and climbed slowly to her feet. "Just take it, you little tramp."

Batgirl did. It felt good to hold it — her odyssey was finally over. But the numbness of fear and exhaustion that was under everything now stole some of the joy. It'd have to be enough for her. That, and the fact that Catwoman had lost everything. Given the trial they'd been through together, Batgirl couldn't be totally numb toward the strange woman.

"You underestimated me," Batgirl proclaimed as she stood, considering the thief. Beyond the door, the sounds of panic and hustling bodies desperate to exit the building had blossomed. The natural consequences of crashing chandeliers and gunshots.

"Oh? I thought I overestimated you, Kitten," Catwoman hissed. "That was a nice play. I just didn't think you were sick enough to pull it off."

"You were going to take the notebook either way and you know it," Batgirl accused. They stood on either side of the massive, fallen behemoth between them.

"I was trying to take down that little Mini-Godfather and have some fun with you doing it," Catwoman growled. "I had a plan, you know. At least, I did, until you ruined it all."

"Did that plan end with me hogtied on that table while you pranced out the door with the notebook and a bunch of money?"

"It ended with that smug little shit cut down another peg or two," Catwoman said, rolling her eyes and nodding as she considered Batgirl's words. "And yeah, maybe the other thing, now that you mention it."

They moved together, stalking each other as they slowly maneuvered toward the door and the chaos beyond. In the distance, muted sirens wailed. "Looks like you lose, then."

"I was going to cut you in on the profits, you know," Catwoman boasted. "Especially after your little... accidental excitement. You certainly have a hair-trigger down there, don't you? Bet Bird-Boy loves all the squealing you make when he tickles your little kitty."

There she was — not the real Catwoman, but “Catwoman” the character. The real Catwoman had been the one who flashed rage when Marchetti had threatened them. The one who'd shared an unspoken vow of sorority against a room full of pimps and thugs. The one who'd looked betrayed when Batgirl had taken advantage of that and tricked her into almost doing something grotesque. The one who was shocked when Batgirl threw the Batarang and sprung the trap.

Catwoman — the masked thief — was true to her name. She clawed at vulnerabilities, dug at them until they were raw. She used her appearance to hamstring the emotions of others. And, of course, she stole everything from them while they were distracted, then left them empty and ashamed. But most importantly, she did it because that was her nature. She knew her strengths, and she used them to their fullest. Even though the understanding was worth absolutely nothing to a woman like her, Batgirl understood.

She couldn't hold it in: "I didn't want to do it, Catwoman. I mean that. But don't act like you can use me as bait and somehow win me over with it. I might look like another easy mark to you. Another puppet that dances the way you want if you pull the right strings. Think again."

"I did say I wanted to get to know you, Kitten," Catwoman growled. "Guess I did."

"I won't forget," she added.

A groan of pain wailed from the direction of the chandelier and the crumpled wooden table. "Help! Oh fuck, my leg! Shit, someone help me!" Anthony Marchetti moaned.

Catwoman smiled warmly as she considered the pile of rubble and the small, whiny voice beneath it. "I'm leaving now, Kitten," she proclaimed. "You can have that chance to kick my ass now, if you want. And I do mean: a chance. Or, you can have him. Your call."

Batgirl looked to the door handle, then to Catwoman, then to the pile of rubble with the mewling, terrified voice of Anthony Marchetti. The red emergency lights pulsed softly, and Catwoman's smile sparkled in the dark every time the lights dimmed. The thought of dragging Marchetti out to a police cavalcade was a bit sweeter to her somehow. Batgirl picked the rubble.

"I'll find you," she warned as she turned and walked away, the notebook clutched tightly in her grasp.

"I'm counting on it, Kitten," Catwoman purred. She opened the door, and was gone.

Despite the fact that the red emergency lights were enough to see the room with, Batgirl keyed the night vision on her optics again. The white lenses were a fun ingredient in times like these. With a gentle jog and a leap, Batgirl was atop the broken table again, and she clambered over the bent, twisted chandelier. It crushed Marchetti a bit more as she added her weight to it, and he howled in pain. She smiled, and added a little more of her weight as she descended right on top of him, and keyed the voice distortion unit in her cowl for extra effect.

"Anthony Marchetti," she growled in a dark, inhuman voice.

His leg was pinned beneath the chandelier, crushed at the thigh, and Batgirl loomed over him like a gargoyle after a cursory scan to make sure he wasn't bleeding too badly internally. He screamed from a volatile mixture of fear and pain. "Fuck! Oh shit, get the fuck away from me! What are yo—"

"—A.K.A. 'Little Italy' Marchetti of the Guzzo crime family of Gotham, she continued, repeating her speech from a time when she was weaker and smaller. "Born February seventeenth, nineteen-eighty-six. Tonight was a test. You failed."

"Ohmygodohmygod pleaseplease!" Marchetti begged pathetically.

Batgirl shut off the voice changer and let her tone seethe now, like the way it had when she was on her knees for him. "You tell anyone — any single person on this planet — that I was here tonight, and I will obliterate you."

"No no no!" Marchetti begged. "Of course! I seen nothin'! No, I-I—"

"—I could tear you apart right now," Batgirl interrupted. "But you have secrets. Things you don't want people to know. I'm going to look in places you don't want me to look. I'm going to find things you don't want me to find. Then, I'm going to show them to all the people you're hiding them from."

"No no no please, wait! Wait I'm — I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, I-I-I shouldn't have made you—"

"—And then?" Batgirl concluded, ignoring him. "Gotham City will rip you apart for me. Francesca Marinetti. Roman Sionis. Sallie Guzzo."

Marchetti's eyes grew even wider at the sound of his uncle's name. "No! No no, don't — not Sal. Plea— aah!"

Batgirl cut him off by stomping her foot on the twisted metal pinning Marchetti's leg. "You'll beg me to turn you in. You'll beg for a trial. For prison. Or you'll beg Gotham City for mercy."

Marchetti started weeping openly. It was sad and pathetic, and Batgirl loved everything about it. She granted herself that joy and tried not to show the beaming rainbow she felt glowing in her soul. "Fucking please, no," he whimpered. "Please please no, please." Somehow, through the terror and pain, Batgirl found the man's eyes glancing down at her still-naked body. She stomped on the chandelier again, and Marchetti howled.

"Don't," Batgirl threatened.

She wondered where to even begin with the disgusting little man. The women Marchetti had brought to his dinner party were all cowering in the corners of the room, balled up in fear and trying to ignore the horrid bat-creature threatening their master.

“None of you have anything to fear from me,” she announced to them. “Get up and evacuate with the rest of the others. I’m not here for you; I’m here for him. If you want this man in prison, you’ll help me when I come and find you. Go.” 

Quickly and quietly, they did. Some of them had already started hobbling to the door long before she was done. She’d need to follow up with these women later if she wanted enough evidence to put Marchetti away, but it was more symbolic of a show right now: this wasn’t Marchetti’s room anymore. It was Batgirl’s.

"What's it going to be, Marchetti?" she asked as the last woman whimpered and rushed through the doorway.

Marchetti cursed, hesitant to spill his secrets even with the spirit of doom literally looming over him. Despite not wanting to, Batgirl wondered for a moment what Marchetti was feeling. What must it feel like to be a man like that and fail? To be small and have nothing expected of you, to find some success, then to have it all stripped away by his own mistakes? Batgirl tried not to think of how many ways that part of his life, at least, overlapped with her own.

"Fuck," he whimpered. "Fine. The fuck do you wanna know?"

Batgirl keyed the voice recording element in her cowl as Marchetti got ready to kick down his own sandcastle and let it wash away in the waves. "Let's start with where you got these women from. Don't make me ask twice or I let this city strip your bones."

"Alright, fuck. Fuck! It's... it's this Asian dude, from some fuckin' shithole country or another. Udon-something."

"Name," Batgirl warned.

"Oh fuck!" Marchetti whined — but, for once, Batgirl could tell it wasn't in fear of her. Marchetti looked at his hand as though he hadn't ever seen it before. "My ring. Where's my ring?"

Batgirl leaned on his leg, and he screamed. "Name. I can drag you to Sal Guzzo. Tonight."

He squealed as he cursed through the pain. "You can just cut my head off or drink my blood right now if I don't find this ring! The Guzzo Family heirloom ring! Solid gold, four carats of diamonds! Fuck, he's gonna kill me anyway!"

Batgirl's eyes narrowed, and turned off the recorder. Diamonds chilled her thighs for some reason. "What?"

"Oh, shit, I'm dead," Marchetti whined as he seemed to shut down. "I'm dead, I'm dead..."

"Ey, boass," a familiar voice grunted. Batgirl had once found the giant Mister Z curious, if not strangely endearing, but knowing what he was capable of brought her to a sharp fighting stance instinctively. He was harmless, for the moment, crumpled on the floor beside the table with a broken leg of his own. He lifted his hand. "Mine's... gone too, boass."

Batgirl focused the optics in her cowl, switching to something that would ping back solid colors for metal. The massive wrought iron chandelier beneath her was the most obvious glow. There were two guns on the floor, including the scattered parts of the one she'd stripped. She looked to Marchetti and Z's hands, and next to Denny, the bearded man who she'd taken down early on in the scramble. Their hands were dark: no rings. Each man Batgirl scanned was cold and blue in the optics; metal of any kind would have shown up white-hot. Batgirl keyed off the lenses and leapt down from the chandelier, her eyes searching not for metal anymore, but for meaning. A reason.

"Catwoman," she whispered to herself.

The notebook.

She traced a finger over the silvery GCPD logo and opened the leather cover to reveal the first page, and she was mad at herself for being surprised that it was the only one with anything written on it. The rest of the pages were completely, utterly blank, their emptiness terrifying, like staring into a fog all over again. She moved close to one of the red emergency lights, and read the page:


Big Guy:


If you're reading this, I probably just stole all your money.

Hopefully, I also stole all those nice rings you and your boys wear.

Sorry, not sorry. Hope you enjoyed the Kitty Cat Show.

Think of me when you rub that tiny little cannoli of yours.

  

Kitten:

If you're reading this, I'm either dead or I'm not.

If I am, please pawn everything I own and get me a very nice funeral.

If I'm not, I'm probably getting the real notebook from the lobby.

I left it with the doorman. Race you there.



Meow,

       Cat 😼



Her hands were shaking by the time she was halfway done reading.

It was for nothing. The highrise explosion. The chase. The nakedness. The shame. The trap. All for nothing.

No, she thought as she scooped up her Batarang from the floor and dashed to the main hall. Not for nothing. For a game. For Catwoman's game. This was all a game to her from the start.

Batgirl didn't see the crowds of naked bodies shouting and panicking as she ran through the building's large, open core. She felt dizzy and numb as she moved, like she was driving a machine shaped like her. Nobody truly saw her, either — everyone was moving on instinct now. Gunshots and crashing sounds. Danger.

But Batgirl wasn't frightened. She was angry. It was her blood, the juice that flowed through her muscles and propelled her forward. Then, another realization flared it hotter: Marchetti's private dining hall wasn't a closing room for a sale — it was a job. The rings were always Catwoman's original prize, or at least one of them. She seemed to live her life in one long, constant heist that always had an option for her to walk away with something. If she'd sold the notebook, she'd have an account full of cash. If not, she'd get the rings. If not the rings, she'd have leverage on Batgirl. If not leverage on Batgirl, then something else.

But that thought sprouted and grew in Batgirl’s mind. How exactly would Catwoman get leverage on Batgirl? Sure, she'd been there in the room with her, coercing her, seducing her into mock sex acts for everyone to see...

For everyone to see.

Catwoman's smiling face appeared in a crowd of bodies huddled near one of the emergency exit paths where security was handing out blankets so people could step out into the cold Gotham night with something to cover themselves with. She smiled as their gazes met for perhaps the last time, then pointed two fingers at her own eyes, and then one straight up:

A security camera dome loomed overhead, like an iris jutting from the ceiling. The lobby had them; apparently the main hall did too. So, why not everywhere else? Batgirl’s blood turned to ice.

Everything that had happened in Marchetti's dining hall was recorded.

Batgirl thought the look on her face of shock and betrayal must have tasted just as sweet to Catwoman as the thief's own shocked gaze must have looked to her before. Her devilish cheshire smile said it all: Either get the security footage, or get the notebook.

Catwoman blew a kiss, knowing which one Batgirl had to pick, and then disappeared forever through the dressing rooms that led to the lobby.

—

The sprint to the security room wasn't physically hard: even flowing against the traffic of naked bodies; even with the aches and bruises of combat; even with the burning shame of failure. But it was emotionally hard for Barbara. It wasn't the failure — that isn't an emotion. It was the rage. She had an unending font of it now, and most of it boiled over and seeped back into her own skin, leaving nowhere else to put it but in her own gut. She hated that she couldn't give any of it to Marchetti or Catwoman now in the form of an ass-kicking. She'd just have to beat herself up instead.

When she kicked open the door to the security room, she tried not to give the two men on the monitors got the worst of it. They were just doing their jobs, after all, even if they were doing so for Anthony Marchetti. But they probably didn't have any allegiances to keep, or any Guzzo rings to steal. So when she threw the Batarang at the fluorescent light overhead and it shattered, she tried to pull her punches. She could have easily filled her fists with all the anger she had and pounded both the men into piles of meat. She didn't. They had no reason to be thankful for that, either. Nothing that had happened was their fault.

As she pulled the minidisc recording of the last hour of footage from the club over the slumped, unconscious bodies of the security team, she tried not to smash it to bits in utter, total rage — it could have something valuable on it. Evidence to be used against Marchetti or Catwoman sometime later. But it was also an embarrassing, horrible thing to look at, like an award trophy given to only the dumbest, most gullible girl in the world. Why should it be shattered to bits for being a piece of plastic that had done its job? She tucked it into her cowl. Nothing that had happened was the minidisc's fault.

And, finally, when Barbara stumbled into the empty maintenance corridor outside the security office and found her feet had become heavy, and her lungs too small to breathe, she collapsed to the floor, and she finally cried as hard as she could. It came out as long stretches of breathless, quiet weeping punctuated by desperate, hopeless wails. Barbara realized it was the first time she'd had a moment alone in quite a while, and that it was her turn to feel now. Batgirl would have to sit in the corner of her mind and rage quietly for a minute instead.

Because everything that had happened tonight — literally all of it — was entirely, undeniably Barbara's fault. 

She’d never be the same again. Catwoman had made sure of that. Barbara had been the raging bull to Catwoman's matador, charging at a red cape dangled ever so provocatively. Catwoman had spun artfully out of the way at every charge and danced for the cheering crowd, never revealing the sword hidden behind her back until the final coup de gras. Sure, the bull was big and dangerous and strong, but it was dumb and drugged with rage. And just like a bull in the arena, a backstab was all Barbara ever had waiting for her in that room.

Underneath it all was the fact that Barbara had essentially stolen the notebook from her father to begin with, and then a better thief had simply stolen it from her. 'I'm a public menace, you're a public menace,' Catwoman's voice echoed in her mind. Perhaps they weren't so different. But at least Catwoman was powerful enough — sexy enough — to control a room full of people without throwing a single punch, or making a single threat. At least Catwoman hadn't failed everyone who was counting on her.

"Stupid, Barbara," she sobbed to herself. "Stupid, stupid, stupid."

"Robin to Batgirl," Dick's voice sounded from her ear. It made her sob even more, and she had to let him say it a few more times before she could gather the courage to speak. She tried to clear her waterlogged nose so she wouldn't sound so pathetic.

"Batgirl here," Barbara said. She opened her eyes and willed the tears to stop. They did.

"Thank God!" Dick whispered under his breath. "I amped our comms array. What's your status? Cops are out in force. I'm seeing people evacuating."

Nothing left to do but take ownership. "Catwoman... surprised me. She got away."

"Roger that," Dick replied with the voice of someone hearing a tactical consequence that needed a response, and not a failure of a teammate who'd blown a mission. "What's her vector?"

"She's in the crowd somewhere," Batgirl replied honestly. "Disrobed. Probably unmasked. She'll move out through the lobby. Keep your eyes on the front door."

And then, the most terrifying voice she'd ever heard spoke in a low, calm tone.

"I've got eyes on the front," Batman said. "Evac. That's an order."

Barbara shivered uncontrollably, and her breathing came out in nervous dry heaves — he was here. The failure was official, now. This was the end of it all. With the notebook and Catwoman in the wind, she'd not only left both dad and Bruce in danger, she’d made a mess of it. Barbara being Batgirl was a poison in their veins. She tried to flex her muscles, to stop herself from shaking, to stem the fear in her voice.

"Roger that," Batgirl said.

The dressing room was colder than she remembered, and Barbara felt like a death row prisoner waiting for sentencing. Batman's voice in her ear was the sound of footsteps stalking down the hall, guards ready to take her to the execution chamber. The irony of her sneaking back there without being seen wasn't lost on her. What kind of inmate wanted to sneak back into her cell?

She peeled out a few more disposable washcloths and smeared away as much of the olive oil from her body as she could before she opened the locked garment closet. Feeling the Batsuit against her skin again was a small blessing. It zipped itself on over her body with the press of a button, and hugged her tightly, padding the bruises she'd taken — covering at least some of the shame. As she looked in the mirror to make sure her eyes weren't too red from weeping, she felt like she didn't deserve walking in Batgirl's skin anymore. If Batgirl was a spirit, some disembodied phantasm that shared space with her person, then she didn't deserve it after tonight. Batman probably agreed. Maybe Robin would, too.

Stop it. No time for that now, Barbara thought. As the psychology of everyone who'd failed played out in her mind — denial ending with acceptance — she checked herself one last time in the mirror, and strode toward the lobby.

Her belt and Batclaw were still in the locked cabinet she'd left them in, to her surprise. Nothing looked tampered with, and no items were out of place. If the lobby concierge was in on it all, he at least wasn't interested in stealth combat gear. Strangely, she found herself making an alibi for him in her mind; again, none of this was anyone else's fault. It was much more likely that Catwoman either lied and never hid the notebook with him at all, or that she hid it without him knowing. She decided it wasn't worth questioning him and shaming herself even further.

Barbara slinked back through the emptied main hall and into the maintenance corridors that held the emergency stairways, and found one that led to the building's lungs. They'd once breathed steam onto the rooftop battleground she'd shared with Catwoman, the first place she'd made a stupid mistake. There was no taste of berries on her lips anymore, but she remembered it as she burned through a massive padlock with a mini-torch from her belt and snuck carefully out onto the roof.

"Robin to Batgirl; got eyes on you. Check your ten."

On the adjacent, higher rooftop that Barbara had initially tried to ambush Catwoman from — another failure — two familiar silhouettes waited. Nobody else would notice them unless they were eagle-eyed and knew exactly what to look for: one was shorter, tighter, and crouched down small; the other was long and menacing, and seemed to have wings that dripped over the edges of the building.

"Copy," Batgirl said. She pulled her Batclaw and zipped to them.

"Hurry up," Robin said as the wind whistled past her. She hated the idea of seeing him, of looking into his eyes after everything she'd done. It wasn't the same with Bruce, since she was always afraid of looking at him. But then, she was next to them anyway: her team, her family. The people she'd let down. It didn't matter what they were called anymore, but she certainly wouldn't be called Batgirl for much longer.

"Hey Babs," Dick said as he smiled. She wanted so badly to hug him, and also be a million miles away from him. "You okay?"

"Hey. Yeah," she lied. "Couple bruises. Concussion, maybe. The usual." He put his hand on her shoulder for a moment, and she enjoyed what she could of it.

"It's been a rough night," Dick said, begging the question.

"I'm fine," Barbara replied.

Batman didn't look at her — his eyes were buried in his tech binoculars, studying the scene below. It always struck Barbara how much bigger and scarier Bruce was when he was suited up. He was big and athletic, but the armor seemed to give him more mass somehow, if substance could be made out of shadows. Barbara knew it was what he was counting on to be the monster of Gotham's night. She just wished she wasn't so afraid of monsters right now.

He looked to her, as if he could hear her thinking about him. "You sure?"

"Yes," Batgirl lied.

He studied her for a moment, probably saw clear through the lie, then pocketed the thought and looked back through the scope. "Alfred will check you both back at the cave," he stated in his deep, calm baritone. It wasn't a question.

"Good work, Batgirl," he added.

Barbara's eyes narrowed. This wasn't the reception she'd expected from either of them. She was such a complete, utter fuck-up. Didn't they know? Weren't they ashamed? But then, how could they know? But then again, wasn't it obvious?

"I... didn't do much," Barbara mumbled.

"You did enough," Dick added. Then: "They got her."

"What?"

"Catwoman," Dick said, as though it were obvious. “They got her.”

Dick handed her his binoculars. She accepted, and gritted her teeth to keep her hands from shaking as she gazed into the scope.

"Down below the second squad car, and off to the left about six meters," Batman said as he glared through his own scope as well. Barbara took in all of the scenes on the street below.

Anthony Marchetti was laid out on a stretcher, drunk on pain meds and confusion. His guardian ogre, Mister Z, was being brought out on an improvised set of stretchers laced together. He looked like he had at least four times the mass that was allowed in the ambulance let alone on the rolling beds.

The lobby concierge was there, helping with blankets and evacuation, dignified as ever, and accepting questions from two detectives as he did. His two front door guards had given their jackets to two women, and were helping out as well. All of them breathed smoke from their mouths as they spoke, a reminder of how bitterly cold the night was.

And finally, being dragged toward a squad car, clearly against her will, was a woman. She had short black hair framing a flushed, fearful expression, and was wearing a blanket to hide her nakedness. One of the cops next to her held a familiar cat mask in his hand; two others restrained her forcefully by the armpits as she fought and kicked the whole way. If she was pretty, Barbara couldn't see it through the utter, unbridled terror twisting her face as she was fed to the police car's open door like it was a vicious, hungry maw. In she went anyway, and it swallowed her whole.

"Oh, right," Barbara mumbled, trying to mask the disbelief in her voice. An ache in her chest swelled as she lowered the binoculars. "They got her."
