Barbara Gordon fic
Title: 20 Random Facts About Barbara Gordon
Fandom: DC comics
Pairing/Characters: Barbara Gordon/Batgirl/Oracle
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Babs et al belong to DC
Author's Note: Aiee-yah, this thing exploded on me. I think each fact was supposed to be short . . . Written for the DC Random Facts Fest. For the mostly-subconscious inspiration for #15, see the Astro City story "The Nearness of You".
Word Count: 1571
1. She misses Dinah. Every day.
2. Sometimes, when the moon is high and the Gotham sky almost red, Batgirl flies through the streets of the city just to feel the wind in her hair. Gotham’s welcoming bleakness lessens the sting of the GCPD’s rejection-too small!-and reminds her of all the reasons she loves her dark, oppressive, gothic city. The city doesn’t discriminate; its harsh underbelly has been known to crawl up and bite the shiny parts on the ass, and good luck is a thing that happens to people somewhere else. Gothamites know better-there’s the look of a native-born watching tourists that says, You’re not strong enough to live in my city. Better get out while you can, ‘cause Gotham has no mercy for those who don’t belong.
Gotham has no mercy for anyone, and Babs likes it that way.
3. After more than a week with social workers and funeral directors and lawyers, nine year old Babs is numb to meeting her uncle for the first time, the husband of the woman she’s named after, who left him and took the cousin she never met. But Uncle Jim gathers her up in his arms, carrying her even though she wants to protest that she’s too big to be carried. When she buries her head in his shoulder he smells like all kinds of new things, a little stinky, but mostly comforting. His ratty trench coat is soft under her hands, and his ragged voice is kind.
He wakes her up when they reach his apartment and her new home, and Babs realizes his voice put her to sleep without nightmares for the first time since Daddy died. It’s the first time she thinks about giving someone else the title.
4. Spoiler’s time with the Birds ends badly, and Barbara can’t bring herself to regret that. She has too much to do and no time to deal with amateurs.
5. Dinah can’t stop laughing for weeks after finding out that her favorite kind of music is Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals. The big, scary Oracle, wanted by organizations worldwide, listens to The King and I on repeat. Dinah hums tunes from Cinderella on her bike, makes cheesy references to Oklahoma! while fighting, and generally makes an utter nuisance of herself. She only stops when Babs funnels the music in through her earpiece constantly, making Dinah swear not only to stop bugging her, but on pain of reciprocal humiliation, that she’d never tell anyone.
6. Her dancing teachers constantly praise her on the effortless way she moves, her whole body working together in a way they don’t see from many students who came to dancing so late. She never tells them her peace with her body comes from having quelled it to her will long ago, with stretches, kicks, and throws.
7. Helena’s recklessness and sheer willingness to throw herself into stupid situations is what drove Barbara away from taking advantage of this female vigilante. She is harsh, deliberately nasty, and has a much wider definition of acceptable violence than is generally agreed on by the Bats.
All of those things are fine by her when Dinah’s life and mental health are on the line.
8. Richard Dragon is the first person not to look at her like her life is over after Joker shoots her. He paces around her chair, studying her body and interrogating her. Barbara answers every question truthfully, though many of them cause her pain, and at the end of it all, he nods.
For months on end afterward, his harsh lessons and uncompromising expectations mean more to her than Dick’s childish cringing at her or Bruce’s stubborn silence. From that day forward, it’s his voice she hears in her head instead of Bruce’s, correcting her form and berating her when she doesn’t live up to his standards, or when her own aren’t high enough. It is exactly what she needs to remind her that, paralyzed or not, she is and always will be strong enough to stand on her own two feet.
9. Loving Dick Grayson is a part of herself that she can’t deny, and never could-as Batgirl, Oracle or Babs. The difference between Batgirl and the woman she is today lies in the fact that she knows love isn’t always meant to work out. She isn’t Batgirl anymore, and he can’t ever really know that. Some part of her will always love him. The rest of her knows that it doesn’t matter, and has learned to be okay with that.
10. The newest Robin is amazing. Hanging out in the Clocktower with him is a startling contradiction to her only meeting with Jason, and she finds herself teaching and learning and being astonished-and yet somehow not-that this child discovered all their secret identities before he hit puberty. Introducing a fellow tech geek to Ted Kord feels somehow both satisfying and mean, since Robin’s obvious hero-worship is bound to make them both uncomfortable.
She’s more amused than she can articulate by them, and finds herself laughing and teasing in turn. Three so disparate people in real life, a former librarian, the CEO of Kord Industries, and a high school hacker nerd, are united in their common interests, and in this moment she can even forgive Robin his hesitation to reveal his identity. They are the only two men she ever seriously considered inducting officially into the Birds.
11. She will never forgive Ollie for everything he’s put Dinah through. The only reason she has any ease about the man is because she knows he won’t forgive himself, either.
12. Despair overtakes her more often than she would ever admit, those first few months. Everyday life is ten times harder, common actions-like reaching for bread in a high cupboard, or going to the bathroom-are suddenly time-consuming trials. After one particularly difficult day she sits alone in her kitchen, weeping and staring at Victor Stone’s phone number in her hand.
13. Sometimes she misses No Man’s Land. The year was hell for Gotham, but it also banded the city together and affirmed what most Gothamites already knew: their city was stubborn enough to survive anything. Her Tower was her home, even if there were days she went nearly crazy, wishing she could get out.
Finding Cass in the midst of the bloodshed, disease and starvation was like finding a diamond in a pile of gravel, and she can never regret handing over her mantle. Helena was, and still is, too liable to go off half-cocked to wear the Bat. Cass is the steadiest person she knows.
14. She is very much enjoying her affair with Metropolis. It’s nice to have a city that can show affection occasionally, that showers her with sunlight. Though she’ll always belong to Gotham at heart, Barbara is pretty sure she can make a home here, and will hold on to it with everything she has.
15. Superman is half of a pair, the World’s Finest, just the two of them. In the wake of the Crisis Babs resents him, feels incomplete.
When the wind blows in clean from Metropolis, or the night air is heavy with the scent of spring and new growth, Batgirl stands at the top of a skyscraper and looks up at the stars. Her heart aches, and she doesn’t know why.
16. She never knows quite what to do with Zinda. The woman is fun, lighthearted and always determined to have a good time-while also being the only person Oracle has willingly worked with whose primary weapon is a gun.
17. Everything she owns is organized, alphabetized, and otherwise arranged to her satisfaction. She claims it’s because she needs to be able to get at everything quickly-when the fate of the world rests on your electronic shoulders, speed counts. In reality, well, she is a librarian.
18. Years after the Joker shoots her, Babs holds onto her anger and hardened despair like a shield. Somewhere in her subconscious, there’s a thought she never wants to admit.
What would have become of her, if she’d never had to become Oracle? The creature who was Batgirl might still live under Bruce’s rule, alone in the city, and might never have learned all the things she could do, what she could become, if she put her mind to it. If she trusted herself.
She doesn’t want to know that all the good things in her life right now come from Oracle, and are things Batgirl could never have had.
19. Batgirl spends three days trying to get over the fact that Gotham’s first son, airhead Brucie Wayne, is really Batman. She doesn’t believe it until she hears Brucie’s voice from The Bat.
20. Dinah waltzes into the Tower likes she owns the place, complaining about her day at the top of her lungs and bringing in food. Babs has Helena on line, talking her through the layout of a warehouse that the crossbow-wielding hero suspects is used to stash coke. Her computers hum around her as Dinah slings herself across the chair next to Barbara’s.
Helena responds snarkily to something Oracle says, and Dinah snaps sarcastically back. Helena laughs and tells Canary to butt out. She ignores them in favor of the Italian food sitting precariously close to her keyboard. Barbara digs in, listening to Dinah and Helena bicker good-naturedly, and knows she wouldn’t trade the life she has now for anything.
Fandom: DC comics
Pairing/Characters: Barbara Gordon/Batgirl/Oracle
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Babs et al belong to DC
Author's Note: Aiee-yah, this thing exploded on me. I think each fact was supposed to be short . . . Written for the DC Random Facts Fest. For the mostly-subconscious inspiration for #15, see the Astro City story "The Nearness of You".
Word Count: 1571
1. She misses Dinah. Every day.
2. Sometimes, when the moon is high and the Gotham sky almost red, Batgirl flies through the streets of the city just to feel the wind in her hair. Gotham’s welcoming bleakness lessens the sting of the GCPD’s rejection-too small!-and reminds her of all the reasons she loves her dark, oppressive, gothic city. The city doesn’t discriminate; its harsh underbelly has been known to crawl up and bite the shiny parts on the ass, and good luck is a thing that happens to people somewhere else. Gothamites know better-there’s the look of a native-born watching tourists that says, You’re not strong enough to live in my city. Better get out while you can, ‘cause Gotham has no mercy for those who don’t belong.
Gotham has no mercy for anyone, and Babs likes it that way.
3. After more than a week with social workers and funeral directors and lawyers, nine year old Babs is numb to meeting her uncle for the first time, the husband of the woman she’s named after, who left him and took the cousin she never met. But Uncle Jim gathers her up in his arms, carrying her even though she wants to protest that she’s too big to be carried. When she buries her head in his shoulder he smells like all kinds of new things, a little stinky, but mostly comforting. His ratty trench coat is soft under her hands, and his ragged voice is kind.
He wakes her up when they reach his apartment and her new home, and Babs realizes his voice put her to sleep without nightmares for the first time since Daddy died. It’s the first time she thinks about giving someone else the title.
4. Spoiler’s time with the Birds ends badly, and Barbara can’t bring herself to regret that. She has too much to do and no time to deal with amateurs.
5. Dinah can’t stop laughing for weeks after finding out that her favorite kind of music is Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals. The big, scary Oracle, wanted by organizations worldwide, listens to The King and I on repeat. Dinah hums tunes from Cinderella on her bike, makes cheesy references to Oklahoma! while fighting, and generally makes an utter nuisance of herself. She only stops when Babs funnels the music in through her earpiece constantly, making Dinah swear not only to stop bugging her, but on pain of reciprocal humiliation, that she’d never tell anyone.
6. Her dancing teachers constantly praise her on the effortless way she moves, her whole body working together in a way they don’t see from many students who came to dancing so late. She never tells them her peace with her body comes from having quelled it to her will long ago, with stretches, kicks, and throws.
7. Helena’s recklessness and sheer willingness to throw herself into stupid situations is what drove Barbara away from taking advantage of this female vigilante. She is harsh, deliberately nasty, and has a much wider definition of acceptable violence than is generally agreed on by the Bats.
All of those things are fine by her when Dinah’s life and mental health are on the line.
8. Richard Dragon is the first person not to look at her like her life is over after Joker shoots her. He paces around her chair, studying her body and interrogating her. Barbara answers every question truthfully, though many of them cause her pain, and at the end of it all, he nods.
For months on end afterward, his harsh lessons and uncompromising expectations mean more to her than Dick’s childish cringing at her or Bruce’s stubborn silence. From that day forward, it’s his voice she hears in her head instead of Bruce’s, correcting her form and berating her when she doesn’t live up to his standards, or when her own aren’t high enough. It is exactly what she needs to remind her that, paralyzed or not, she is and always will be strong enough to stand on her own two feet.
9. Loving Dick Grayson is a part of herself that she can’t deny, and never could-as Batgirl, Oracle or Babs. The difference between Batgirl and the woman she is today lies in the fact that she knows love isn’t always meant to work out. She isn’t Batgirl anymore, and he can’t ever really know that. Some part of her will always love him. The rest of her knows that it doesn’t matter, and has learned to be okay with that.
10. The newest Robin is amazing. Hanging out in the Clocktower with him is a startling contradiction to her only meeting with Jason, and she finds herself teaching and learning and being astonished-and yet somehow not-that this child discovered all their secret identities before he hit puberty. Introducing a fellow tech geek to Ted Kord feels somehow both satisfying and mean, since Robin’s obvious hero-worship is bound to make them both uncomfortable.
She’s more amused than she can articulate by them, and finds herself laughing and teasing in turn. Three so disparate people in real life, a former librarian, the CEO of Kord Industries, and a high school hacker nerd, are united in their common interests, and in this moment she can even forgive Robin his hesitation to reveal his identity. They are the only two men she ever seriously considered inducting officially into the Birds.
11. She will never forgive Ollie for everything he’s put Dinah through. The only reason she has any ease about the man is because she knows he won’t forgive himself, either.
12. Despair overtakes her more often than she would ever admit, those first few months. Everyday life is ten times harder, common actions-like reaching for bread in a high cupboard, or going to the bathroom-are suddenly time-consuming trials. After one particularly difficult day she sits alone in her kitchen, weeping and staring at Victor Stone’s phone number in her hand.
13. Sometimes she misses No Man’s Land. The year was hell for Gotham, but it also banded the city together and affirmed what most Gothamites already knew: their city was stubborn enough to survive anything. Her Tower was her home, even if there were days she went nearly crazy, wishing she could get out.
Finding Cass in the midst of the bloodshed, disease and starvation was like finding a diamond in a pile of gravel, and she can never regret handing over her mantle. Helena was, and still is, too liable to go off half-cocked to wear the Bat. Cass is the steadiest person she knows.
14. She is very much enjoying her affair with Metropolis. It’s nice to have a city that can show affection occasionally, that showers her with sunlight. Though she’ll always belong to Gotham at heart, Barbara is pretty sure she can make a home here, and will hold on to it with everything she has.
15. Superman is half of a pair, the World’s Finest, just the two of them. In the wake of the Crisis Babs resents him, feels incomplete.
When the wind blows in clean from Metropolis, or the night air is heavy with the scent of spring and new growth, Batgirl stands at the top of a skyscraper and looks up at the stars. Her heart aches, and she doesn’t know why.
16. She never knows quite what to do with Zinda. The woman is fun, lighthearted and always determined to have a good time-while also being the only person Oracle has willingly worked with whose primary weapon is a gun.
17. Everything she owns is organized, alphabetized, and otherwise arranged to her satisfaction. She claims it’s because she needs to be able to get at everything quickly-when the fate of the world rests on your electronic shoulders, speed counts. In reality, well, she is a librarian.
18. Years after the Joker shoots her, Babs holds onto her anger and hardened despair like a shield. Somewhere in her subconscious, there’s a thought she never wants to admit.
What would have become of her, if she’d never had to become Oracle? The creature who was Batgirl might still live under Bruce’s rule, alone in the city, and might never have learned all the things she could do, what she could become, if she put her mind to it. If she trusted herself.
She doesn’t want to know that all the good things in her life right now come from Oracle, and are things Batgirl could never have had.
19. Batgirl spends three days trying to get over the fact that Gotham’s first son, airhead Brucie Wayne, is really Batman. She doesn’t believe it until she hears Brucie’s voice from The Bat.
20. Dinah waltzes into the Tower likes she owns the place, complaining about her day at the top of her lungs and bringing in food. Babs has Helena on line, talking her through the layout of a warehouse that the crossbow-wielding hero suspects is used to stash coke. Her computers hum around her as Dinah slings herself across the chair next to Barbara’s.
Helena responds snarkily to something Oracle says, and Dinah snaps sarcastically back. Helena laughs and tells Canary to butt out. She ignores them in favor of the Italian food sitting precariously close to her keyboard. Barbara digs in, listening to Dinah and Helena bicker good-naturedly, and knows she wouldn’t trade the life she has now for anything.