Never has a fic fit my default icon more
Title: Phoenix
Fandom: DC comics
Pairing/Characters: Barbara Gordon
Rating: PG
Summary: Strength is a stubborn redhead.
Disclaimer: Babs and the Birds belong to DC.
Author's Note: written for
merfilly’s Memorial Day Challenge.
Word Count: 719
Make me shining, fragments of my scattered heart
A radiance that surpasses hope
-Kinya Kotani - Shining Collection
Barbara Gordon leaned back, settling into her chair in her new apartment in Dalton Towers. The only light was from her floating computer screens, green and glaring, and from the light of Metropolis out her windows. Not like Gotham, when sometimes it was dark even in the middle of the day. This place was scrubbed clean and shiny, and even then . . . here she was, sitting in the dark.
Still a Bat, Dinah would say, teasing, but also right.
Bruce. Damn the man! Why does he have to-bleed his neuroses into everything he touches? Barbara pinched the bridge of her nose. Years ago-less long ago than it seemed, but still years and years-she’d tracked down and followed the Caped Crusaders because she’d thought it would be fun, and she could do some good-good the GCPD wouldn’t let her do, then. She fell in love, she went through all kinds of hell, she kicked ass and she smiled. But it was never as good as I thought it was, not even then, and less so now.
And Dick. Robin, the Boy Wonder, perfect in every way except the ones that mattered. Strong and smart and his own man-kind of. Like a yo-yo, Dick always went back to Bruce, always followed his rules and put his mission first.
Of all the things Bruce corrupted, Barbara sometimes thinks Dick was the worst. Sometimes she doesn’t.
She isn’t sure which makes her feel less like strangling them both.
In the end, they’re both too caught up in themselves to have any time for helping her, or loving her. Barbara glares a little at their faces in her mind. I thought you could light my way. I thought you would love me, lift me up.
Ping!
Jarred out of her contemplation-call it was it is, Babs, brooding-she wheeled over to the display and checked to see who needed her now.
Nothing much, just a note from Helena, from her school servers.
Barbara:
I’m dripping with rain, three of my kids were coughing so I’m doomed to get sick, and the principal is going to be a pain in the ass and looking over my shoulder every five minutes, and NOT just to ogle my chest.
I still can’t thank you for this enough.
-Helena
She smiled. In one corner her cam from Sherwood Florist II showed Dinah locking up for the night and exchanging bad jokes and stories with Rhosyn. There was a mysterious package waiting for her somewhere that she knew was Cass’s idea of a housewarming present-knowing the girl, it was probably a heating pad or something else equally literal. She’d have her dad bring it up next time he came to visit.
Checking over her most recent e-mail, she reminded herself again to go over the specs for those new communicators Ted sent over from his company’s R&D department. Maybe she’d send them on to Tim to look over; the Titans could always use more durable comms, and Cyborg might have some interesting suggestions.
Nothing pressing from the hero community at the moment, either, though J’onn had sent another e-mail reminding her that she should feel free to refuse idle requests. He felt they’d come to rely too much on her lately, and she agreed that heroes needed to remember how to do their own research. Still, it was nice to be needed.
Babs laughed. What was she doing, sitting up here in her tower feeling sorry for herself? Bruce was as prickly as a cactus at the best of times, and if what she was hearing from the new Outsiders team was right, Dick was doing his level best to push away anyone who might care about him. They were still caught up in their old habits and obsessions. They’d never promised her anything, anyway.
This, though-she earned this, with every breath she breathed. Oracle was hers, and her, and she wasn’t a Bat anymore, dammit. Smiling, she thought of Zinda and the pretty new toy on her roof. She was a Bird. She forged the path, lit her own way; she didn’t need the support of someone else’s love. Whoever she used to be, she was now. She was someone new, too, a hero of her own volition, and a whole woman.
Babs reached out and turned on the lights.