Secrets Away, DCU fanfic (Dick/Babs, R)
Title: Secrets Away
Author: modestroad
Fandom: DCU
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Dick Grayson/Barbara Gordon, Bruce Wayne, Dinah Lance, Jim Gordon
Rating: R/Mature
Warning(s): Miron drug use. Language. Angst. Adult theme.
Summary: Is a secret strong enough to break them apart or bond them forever? Dick is going to find out that sometimes you have to break something just to fix it.
Notes: I couldn't do it without my fantastic four, alexiel_neesan, ladyithildiel, reginalibintia and megganblack I can't thank you enough, ladies. The story take place after The Return of Bruce Wayne.
“You are a dick!”
Dinah yelled at Dick without caring about the people that were staring at her, the second she spotted him parking his bike. Bat boys sure did like their fancy toys, Dinah thought looking at Dick’s black Ducati. She was ready to ask how fast this baby could go when she shook her head. She was here for a mission, not to drool over impressive motorbikes.
For God’s sake, she wasn’t a dude with a turn-on for fast rides! Okay, she wasn’t a dude, but she liked fast rides and she was about to give Grayson the ride of his life. Without giving him enough time to settle the bike, an accusing finger touched his chest.
“You are a dick!” She said again, the finger still on his chest, Dinah raised an eyebrow challenging him to say something.
He smiled at her and for a second Dinah could understand why Babs had fallen for him. Dick’s best feature was his boyish smile and she let out a deep sigh. How was she supposed to stay angry with him, when all he had to do was smile and she was turning into a puddle of goo?
“What am I going to do with you?”
“I thought I was a dick,” he said.
Dinah bit her lip. “You are. But you kinda grew on me. Like a fungus.”
He shook his head as if he didn’t believe her. “Any chance you went to all that trouble just to say I’m a dick? Although I’m not really sure why I’m the dick here; your girlfriend was the one that threw me out of her house.”
Dinah opened her mouth to say something. Then she closed it. Then she opened it again
“Either that’s you best ‘I’m a goldfish’ imitation or Babs didn’t tell you. I hope it is your ‘I’m a goldfish’ imitation ‘cause I wouldn’t want to be on your bad side. You weren’t a member of the League just because you look great in leather.”
Dinah said nothing.
“Dinah? Are you feel--“
“That little…little…” Dinah struggled to find the right word. Then her face lit like a Christmas tree. She had found the right word after all. “Bat!”
She heard him chuckle and gave him her best Canary stare. The one that send chills down Ollie’s spine. The one that was enough to stop any thug on the spot and have him cry uncle. Dick stopped at once. Yeah, she still had it.
“Why don’t we go somewhere more private?” Dick asked and Dinah had to agree with him.
They walked inside the library without talking, side by side. Dinah felt like she was going behind Babs’s back but she had to know the truth. Babs would never tell. She could have Zinda pour drinks for the redhead all night and all day and Dinah doubted that they could learn anything from her.
The redhead was stubborn as a mule and could keep a secret when she wanted to. Like being infected by the Brainiac virus. If Babs hadn’t gotten sick from it Dinah could bet good money that Oracle could have kept it a secret. Why did she have to be so damn proud anyway?
“Here is good,” she couldn’t wait any longer.
“Babs would love the irony,” Dick whispered but he didn’t have to. Dinah had chosen the perfect spot for a little chit chat between friends. “You knew?”
It wasn’t an accusation but it sure felt like one. “She had told me, yes.”
“Does her father know?”
“Does it matter?”
“To me it does.”
Dinah felt sorry for Dick. For a moment she considered the possibility of lying to him, but the last thing he needed was more lies. She nodded.
“Great! Just great.”
“It’s not easy for her.”
He put a hand in front of him in the universal sign of no. “Don’t, okay? Just don’t. Don’t try to justify her action to me. For some reason Ms Gordon decided that I wasn’t worthy enough to bless me with her trust.”
Dinah was surprised from the bitterness in his voice. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do actually. I do. You knew. Bruce knew, Jim knew, the junkie down the road knew, everybody and their mothers knew and I didn’t have a clue.” He laughed. “I suppose I had enough clues to put two and two together, but I always thought that if she had a problem, she would come to me.”
“She wanted to tell you.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Dinah tilted her head to the right. “I suppose not. Tell me what happen, Dick. Right now I have two friends that need my help. One is going to get some TLS and the other is going to have her ass kicked.”
He rose and eyebrow. “Her?”
“Oh, come on! Like you don’t want to do it.”
Dick’s laughed was short lived but a loud ‘ssshhhh’ was heard from the other side of the room. Dinah put a hand in front of her mouth to contain her giggles. Coming to the library wasn’t such a smart move as it seemed, but she had chosen the library for the privacy it could provide. A café was too dangerous; you could never know who was listening and the last thing Dinah wanted was some low life reporter finding out about Commissioner’s Gordon’s daughter’s drug use.
That thought was enough to sober her up. Babs had had enough without getting the front page. And if there was a person that needed respect that person was Jim Gordon. It would pain her to see him suffer the consequences if that went public. Everybody knew how much the Commissioner loved his daughter and it wouldn’t take long for the rumors to start flying. And Gotham couldn’t afford to lose Gordon again.
“What did she say to you?” Dick asked, bringing an end to her thoughts.
“She didn’t say much. Only that you left your key--“
“She threw me out!”
“And as I said she didn’t say much!”
“Did she say that I went back immediately to apologize for my behavior only to have her shut me out?”
Dinah shook her head.
“Did she say that I begged, I begged her Dinah, to talk to me and she acted like nothing was wrong?”
Dinah shook her head again.
“And did she say to you that after that I tried to play her game? I thought that if I went along with her moods she would open up, you know? Of course, I didn’t hope that she would start talking right away, but I was hoping for something. Nada! Zero! Meden! She stopped talking to me. She stopped sleeping in our bed. She shut me out completely! I have faced enough walls in my life to know when I have to push and when I have to move on.”
Dinah watched him as he poured his heart out and tried to realize what was wrong with him. It wasn’t the dark clothes, no that was a thing left over from his time as the Dark Knight. It wasn’t his laugh that was now hard and cold much like Bruce’s. He was overtaking and that was such a Dick thing to do, but what caught her attention was his lack of movement.
When Dick was nervous he moved. When Dick was calm and relaxed, he moved. The man was like the Energizer Bunny, always moving, never able to stand still. It was one of the things that drove Babs crazy and Dinah hadn’t realized how much she connected Dick with movement until today.
She opened her mouth to comment, but decided that a hug would be nicer. Dick wasn’t a very tall man but he was just the right size of tall for her. Hugging him didn’t feel like such a silly thing. From the way he hugged back, it was obvious that the younger man needed that hug like he needed air to breath.
Dinah doubted that Bruce was the hug type. The most affection Dinah could picture him showing was a friendly tap on the shoulder. Sometimes she couldn’t help but wonder how Dick had grown to be the man he was now. He was the opposite of Bruce…and, in a way, the opposite of Babs.
Maybe that’s why it had taken them so long to stop dancing around each other and do something about their feelings. Dick was pretty much an open book while Babs was the Kindle version for PC; you didn’t know what you bought until you opened it and read it. Yet there was one time not too long ago that Dinah could look at her best friend and know what she was feeling.
“You can let me go now, Dinah, I’m not going to break,” Dick said and when she raised her head to look at him, he smiled and, for the first time today, he smiled like he meant it.
“I’ve missed you,” Dinah whispered but loud enough for him to hear it.
“What?” He asked puzzled.
Dinah shook her head. “Not important. So Babs acted like a four-year-old, which I suppose is how she always acts. Remind me to buy her a book on our way back. Why Smart People Can Be so Stupid. You think she will get the hint?”
“Babs? No.”
“Yeah, that’s what I though too. Come on, pretty boy. Let me buy you an ice cream.”
They left the section with the theological books and Dinah had to admit that when Babs was right, she was right; she had said that there was no better place for a talk (or for a little play time) in the whole Gotham than this section. Hardly anyone was coming here and the few that came were either lost or too focused trying to find conspiracies and secret books to pay attention to anything else.
It felt a little weird being here. This was Babs’s territory and even if the redhead hadn’t been here to work as a librarian in years, Dinah couldn’t shake that feeling. She looked at Dick and wondered if he felt the same way. She had only met Batgirl and often was trying to picture Babs without the weight of Oracle on her shoulders. Without the chair. Would Babs still be Batgirl if the Joker hadn’t shot her that night? Would she still be her best friend if she had never become Oracle?
“She’s okay? She’s doing fine?”
“Are you okay?” She asked him.
His answer was so soft that she hardly heard it. “No.”
“Then why do you think she’s okay? She’s hurt, Dick, and unlike you, she won’t talk about it. I learned more from you in one hour than I did from her the last couple of weeks. I’m her best friend, damn it! If she can’t talk to me…”
Dick said nothing and they walked outside the open air. It was starting to get cold despite the sun still being up in the sky. The weather station had said that it was going to rain late in the night, but Dinah couldn’t spot a single cloud. Maybe the storm was somewhere else.
“Do you love her?”
“Of course I do!”
The boy didn’t take time to think about it. Good for him. Dinah was going to help her friend. Someone had to do something and it was pretty obvious that those two had given up the fight. She looked at her watch. Babs would be still with her dad. So, that gave Dinah enough time to form a plan, kidnap the redhead and drive her all the way to the manor.
Oh! She already had a plan!
“Go to the manor and wait. I’ll bring her there in an hour give or take.”
Dick froze. “What are you going to do? Kidnap her? She won’t come…you’re going to kidnap her, aren’t you?”
“Someone has to do something. And my kung fu is better than hers, so she won’t try anything weird with me. But you two need to talk and that’s what you’re going to do.”
“What if she doesn’t want to talk to me?”
Dinah stopped and looked at him. “She will after I am finished with her.”
******************
She had never been an easy child.
He didn’t need to have her perfect memory to remember that his daughter was a pain in the ass. Barbara was too smart, too proud and too damn stubborn for her own good. The second was something he blamed on himself, but the rest was her mother’s. His brother was fool enough to drink himself to death, but Thelma? Thelma was stubborn enough not to leave his brother when she was pregnant with Jim’s child.
It was that stubbornness and a sick twist of fate that gave him the chance to raise his own daughter and not visit her every weekend as any good uncle would do. He had lost two people that he loved, but he had gained a daughter and a new life. And when his divorce came out, Barbara didn’t let him lose himself to sorrow.
He wanted to believe that he did the same for her, but he knew the truth. After the shooting (the bullet should have been for him, damn it!) it took her a while to come back. In fact for a very long period of time he was sure that he had lost her. Then something happen and she changed. She started smiling more and went out more; she had found a purpose to life again.
Jim should have known it then but a part of him didn’t want to accept the truth. He didn’t want to believe that his daughter was the Batgirl, because that could mean that she had lost a lot more than the use of her legs. So he never asked and when the Batgirl became more of an urban myth and less of a vigilante, he forced himself to believe that Batgirl had retired.
Otherwise he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.
But time heals everything and, after a while, she smiled more often and he was able to sleep without thinking of the Batgirl with the red hair. Sure they had their ups and downs; what father and daughter didn’t? And they were still here fighting the good fight, although Jim could be fine without knowing that his daughter was the notorious Oracle, but she was never an easy child to begin with.
And sometimes he wished otherwise.
“I know that look,” he said, wiping his moustache with a napkin.
His daughter was a creature of the night. She loved to stay up all night and go to sleep in the wee hours of the morning. That’s why he knew that something was wrong when she paid him an unexpected visit before he had his morning coffee. If it hadn’t been the hour, it would have been the lack of plan. Barbara liked to plan out everything.
“What look?”
“The ‘I haven’t slept for days because my mind can’t stop thinking’ look.”
“I’m sure you are over reacting,” she replied.
“Oh, no,” Jim said behind his cup of black coffee, “You do look like crap.”
“It’s always a pleasure coming here.”
At least she hadn’t lost her sense of humor. Jim didn’t push her. He knew from experience that pushing her would only cause the opposite effect.
“How’s Dinah? The divorce must be hard on her.”
“Not as hard as living with that cad.”
“How you spell that, anyway?” Jim asked matter-of-factly.
“With an ‘a’ dad. I don’t know if you know it, but I’m a woman and I have respect for that part of the female anatomy. Now if both words happen to sound the same that’s hardly my fault, is it?”
Jim looked at her. She looked at him. Four seconds later they were both laughing hard. He missed that more than everything. Talking on the phone wasn’t the same as talking face to face with one another. Some days he missed having her here, but his daughter was a woman now and she needed her personal space.
Being Oracle only complicated things more.
“And what about the Grayson boy? I haven’t seen him in days. You’re still together, right?” He asked and took a sip from his cup.
Barbara flinched. “Very smooth, dad. I didn’t see that one coming from miles away.”
“From the way you are avoiding the question, I have to guess that you’re not seeing each other anymore.”
“We don’t,” she said sad.
Jim stared at her for a long time.
“For crying out loud, he didn’t cheat on me so you can stop staring at me like this! It wasn’t his fault, okay? It was my fault. It is my fault. Dick did nothing. He’s a good man and he deserves better.”
The cup hit the kitchen table with more force than needed. “Better?”
She must have seen the anger in his eyes because she didn’t dare to speak.
“What do you mean better, Barbara?”
“A cripple, dad, okay? He deserves someone that’s not a cripple!”
“Don’t you dare call yourself that word!” he yelled.
“Why not? That’s what I am anyway. You think sugar coating the pill for me will change the fact that I’m nothing more than a cripple?”
“Please, Barbie doll…” it was a plea, but if she heard it she paid no attention to it.
“Will it change the fact that I can’t go to my favorite café because they don’t have a ramp? Or that people look at me as if my condition is contagious? Or that I need two hours just to take a du--?” She stopped. Her dad didn’t have to know that.
Jim had seen his daughter angry before; a lot of times actually. He had never believed the myth for red hair and temper until the day he saw Barbara hit a kid twice her age because he had made fun of her hair. Growing up, she hid that temper behind well calculated moves, but it was always there, just under the surface.
So, to see the anger in her eyes and hear it in her voice shocked him to the core. He could hardly recognize his daughter; her face was misshapen from anger and her green eyes had turned a much darker shade. For the first time in his life, he was afraid of his daughter.
“Stop it, please!”
He wasn’t sure if it was the tone of his voice or the fact that, without realizing it, he had pushed his chair next to her. She blinked a few times as if she only then realized what she was doing and stopped. He saw the tears in her eyes and felt like half a man. His child was hurting and he could do nothing to take the pain away.
No father should feel like this.
“I’m sorry dad,” Barbara wiped her eyes, but the tears kept coming.
“Honey, why are you so angry?”
Her body started to tremble and before he knew it he was hugging her, and stroking her hair, and whispering to her ear that everything was fine.
“It’s not fine,” she said between sobs. “I’m angry all the time.”
His knees were killing him but he didn’t let go. If he couldn’t do something to ease the pain, then he would be there for her. He held her until the trembling stopped. After a while her breathing went back to normal and she sniffed hard inside his ear.
“Are you feeling better now?”
“Somewhat,” she said at the same time the door bell rang.
The last thing Jim wanted was to leave her alone, but she kissed his cheek and let him get up. He gave her a worried look and she tried to smile.
“It will only take me one minute,” Jim assure her and ignoring the protest of his knees, he run to the next room.
He was never as happy as the moment he saw Dinah standing at his front door.
“Are you wearing mascara, Jim?”
“What?” He asked and with his hand wiped his cheek. His fingers went black.
“Babs is still feeling sorry for herself?” Dinah asked with concern and stepped inside.
“I don’t know what to do, Dinah.”
Dinah winked at him. “That’s okay because I have a plan.”
Next Part>/a>
Part One
Author: modestroad
Fandom: DCU
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Dick Grayson/Barbara Gordon, Bruce Wayne, Dinah Lance, Jim Gordon
Rating: R/Mature
Warning(s): Miron drug use. Language. Angst. Adult theme.
Summary: Is a secret strong enough to break them apart or bond them forever? Dick is going to find out that sometimes you have to break something just to fix it.
Notes: I couldn't do it without my fantastic four, alexiel_neesan, ladyithildiel, reginalibintia and megganblack I can't thank you enough, ladies. The story take place after The Return of Bruce Wayne.
“You are a dick!”
Dinah yelled at Dick without caring about the people that were staring at her, the second she spotted him parking his bike. Bat boys sure did like their fancy toys, Dinah thought looking at Dick’s black Ducati. She was ready to ask how fast this baby could go when she shook her head. She was here for a mission, not to drool over impressive motorbikes.
For God’s sake, she wasn’t a dude with a turn-on for fast rides! Okay, she wasn’t a dude, but she liked fast rides and she was about to give Grayson the ride of his life. Without giving him enough time to settle the bike, an accusing finger touched his chest.
“You are a dick!” She said again, the finger still on his chest, Dinah raised an eyebrow challenging him to say something.
He smiled at her and for a second Dinah could understand why Babs had fallen for him. Dick’s best feature was his boyish smile and she let out a deep sigh. How was she supposed to stay angry with him, when all he had to do was smile and she was turning into a puddle of goo?
“What am I going to do with you?”
“I thought I was a dick,” he said.
Dinah bit her lip. “You are. But you kinda grew on me. Like a fungus.”
He shook his head as if he didn’t believe her. “Any chance you went to all that trouble just to say I’m a dick? Although I’m not really sure why I’m the dick here; your girlfriend was the one that threw me out of her house.”
Dinah opened her mouth to say something. Then she closed it. Then she opened it again
“Either that’s you best ‘I’m a goldfish’ imitation or Babs didn’t tell you. I hope it is your ‘I’m a goldfish’ imitation ‘cause I wouldn’t want to be on your bad side. You weren’t a member of the League just because you look great in leather.”
Dinah said nothing.
“Dinah? Are you feel--“
“That little…little…” Dinah struggled to find the right word. Then her face lit like a Christmas tree. She had found the right word after all. “Bat!”
She heard him chuckle and gave him her best Canary stare. The one that send chills down Ollie’s spine. The one that was enough to stop any thug on the spot and have him cry uncle. Dick stopped at once. Yeah, she still had it.
“Why don’t we go somewhere more private?” Dick asked and Dinah had to agree with him.
They walked inside the library without talking, side by side. Dinah felt like she was going behind Babs’s back but she had to know the truth. Babs would never tell. She could have Zinda pour drinks for the redhead all night and all day and Dinah doubted that they could learn anything from her.
The redhead was stubborn as a mule and could keep a secret when she wanted to. Like being infected by the Brainiac virus. If Babs hadn’t gotten sick from it Dinah could bet good money that Oracle could have kept it a secret. Why did she have to be so damn proud anyway?
“Here is good,” she couldn’t wait any longer.
“Babs would love the irony,” Dick whispered but he didn’t have to. Dinah had chosen the perfect spot for a little chit chat between friends. “You knew?”
It wasn’t an accusation but it sure felt like one. “She had told me, yes.”
“Does her father know?”
“Does it matter?”
“To me it does.”
Dinah felt sorry for Dick. For a moment she considered the possibility of lying to him, but the last thing he needed was more lies. She nodded.
“Great! Just great.”
“It’s not easy for her.”
He put a hand in front of him in the universal sign of no. “Don’t, okay? Just don’t. Don’t try to justify her action to me. For some reason Ms Gordon decided that I wasn’t worthy enough to bless me with her trust.”
Dinah was surprised from the bitterness in his voice. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do actually. I do. You knew. Bruce knew, Jim knew, the junkie down the road knew, everybody and their mothers knew and I didn’t have a clue.” He laughed. “I suppose I had enough clues to put two and two together, but I always thought that if she had a problem, she would come to me.”
“She wanted to tell you.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Dinah tilted her head to the right. “I suppose not. Tell me what happen, Dick. Right now I have two friends that need my help. One is going to get some TLS and the other is going to have her ass kicked.”
He rose and eyebrow. “Her?”
“Oh, come on! Like you don’t want to do it.”
Dick’s laughed was short lived but a loud ‘ssshhhh’ was heard from the other side of the room. Dinah put a hand in front of her mouth to contain her giggles. Coming to the library wasn’t such a smart move as it seemed, but she had chosen the library for the privacy it could provide. A café was too dangerous; you could never know who was listening and the last thing Dinah wanted was some low life reporter finding out about Commissioner’s Gordon’s daughter’s drug use.
That thought was enough to sober her up. Babs had had enough without getting the front page. And if there was a person that needed respect that person was Jim Gordon. It would pain her to see him suffer the consequences if that went public. Everybody knew how much the Commissioner loved his daughter and it wouldn’t take long for the rumors to start flying. And Gotham couldn’t afford to lose Gordon again.
“What did she say to you?” Dick asked, bringing an end to her thoughts.
“She didn’t say much. Only that you left your key--“
“She threw me out!”
“And as I said she didn’t say much!”
“Did she say that I went back immediately to apologize for my behavior only to have her shut me out?”
Dinah shook her head.
“Did she say that I begged, I begged her Dinah, to talk to me and she acted like nothing was wrong?”
Dinah shook her head again.
“And did she say to you that after that I tried to play her game? I thought that if I went along with her moods she would open up, you know? Of course, I didn’t hope that she would start talking right away, but I was hoping for something. Nada! Zero! Meden! She stopped talking to me. She stopped sleeping in our bed. She shut me out completely! I have faced enough walls in my life to know when I have to push and when I have to move on.”
Dinah watched him as he poured his heart out and tried to realize what was wrong with him. It wasn’t the dark clothes, no that was a thing left over from his time as the Dark Knight. It wasn’t his laugh that was now hard and cold much like Bruce’s. He was overtaking and that was such a Dick thing to do, but what caught her attention was his lack of movement.
When Dick was nervous he moved. When Dick was calm and relaxed, he moved. The man was like the Energizer Bunny, always moving, never able to stand still. It was one of the things that drove Babs crazy and Dinah hadn’t realized how much she connected Dick with movement until today.
She opened her mouth to comment, but decided that a hug would be nicer. Dick wasn’t a very tall man but he was just the right size of tall for her. Hugging him didn’t feel like such a silly thing. From the way he hugged back, it was obvious that the younger man needed that hug like he needed air to breath.
Dinah doubted that Bruce was the hug type. The most affection Dinah could picture him showing was a friendly tap on the shoulder. Sometimes she couldn’t help but wonder how Dick had grown to be the man he was now. He was the opposite of Bruce…and, in a way, the opposite of Babs.
Maybe that’s why it had taken them so long to stop dancing around each other and do something about their feelings. Dick was pretty much an open book while Babs was the Kindle version for PC; you didn’t know what you bought until you opened it and read it. Yet there was one time not too long ago that Dinah could look at her best friend and know what she was feeling.
“You can let me go now, Dinah, I’m not going to break,” Dick said and when she raised her head to look at him, he smiled and, for the first time today, he smiled like he meant it.
“I’ve missed you,” Dinah whispered but loud enough for him to hear it.
“What?” He asked puzzled.
Dinah shook her head. “Not important. So Babs acted like a four-year-old, which I suppose is how she always acts. Remind me to buy her a book on our way back. Why Smart People Can Be so Stupid. You think she will get the hint?”
“Babs? No.”
“Yeah, that’s what I though too. Come on, pretty boy. Let me buy you an ice cream.”
They left the section with the theological books and Dinah had to admit that when Babs was right, she was right; she had said that there was no better place for a talk (or for a little play time) in the whole Gotham than this section. Hardly anyone was coming here and the few that came were either lost or too focused trying to find conspiracies and secret books to pay attention to anything else.
It felt a little weird being here. This was Babs’s territory and even if the redhead hadn’t been here to work as a librarian in years, Dinah couldn’t shake that feeling. She looked at Dick and wondered if he felt the same way. She had only met Batgirl and often was trying to picture Babs without the weight of Oracle on her shoulders. Without the chair. Would Babs still be Batgirl if the Joker hadn’t shot her that night? Would she still be her best friend if she had never become Oracle?
“She’s okay? She’s doing fine?”
“Are you okay?” She asked him.
His answer was so soft that she hardly heard it. “No.”
“Then why do you think she’s okay? She’s hurt, Dick, and unlike you, she won’t talk about it. I learned more from you in one hour than I did from her the last couple of weeks. I’m her best friend, damn it! If she can’t talk to me…”
Dick said nothing and they walked outside the open air. It was starting to get cold despite the sun still being up in the sky. The weather station had said that it was going to rain late in the night, but Dinah couldn’t spot a single cloud. Maybe the storm was somewhere else.
“Do you love her?”
“Of course I do!”
The boy didn’t take time to think about it. Good for him. Dinah was going to help her friend. Someone had to do something and it was pretty obvious that those two had given up the fight. She looked at her watch. Babs would be still with her dad. So, that gave Dinah enough time to form a plan, kidnap the redhead and drive her all the way to the manor.
Oh! She already had a plan!
“Go to the manor and wait. I’ll bring her there in an hour give or take.”
Dick froze. “What are you going to do? Kidnap her? She won’t come…you’re going to kidnap her, aren’t you?”
“Someone has to do something. And my kung fu is better than hers, so she won’t try anything weird with me. But you two need to talk and that’s what you’re going to do.”
“What if she doesn’t want to talk to me?”
Dinah stopped and looked at him. “She will after I am finished with her.”
******************
She had never been an easy child.
He didn’t need to have her perfect memory to remember that his daughter was a pain in the ass. Barbara was too smart, too proud and too damn stubborn for her own good. The second was something he blamed on himself, but the rest was her mother’s. His brother was fool enough to drink himself to death, but Thelma? Thelma was stubborn enough not to leave his brother when she was pregnant with Jim’s child.
It was that stubbornness and a sick twist of fate that gave him the chance to raise his own daughter and not visit her every weekend as any good uncle would do. He had lost two people that he loved, but he had gained a daughter and a new life. And when his divorce came out, Barbara didn’t let him lose himself to sorrow.
He wanted to believe that he did the same for her, but he knew the truth. After the shooting (the bullet should have been for him, damn it!) it took her a while to come back. In fact for a very long period of time he was sure that he had lost her. Then something happen and she changed. She started smiling more and went out more; she had found a purpose to life again.
Jim should have known it then but a part of him didn’t want to accept the truth. He didn’t want to believe that his daughter was the Batgirl, because that could mean that she had lost a lot more than the use of her legs. So he never asked and when the Batgirl became more of an urban myth and less of a vigilante, he forced himself to believe that Batgirl had retired.
Otherwise he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.
But time heals everything and, after a while, she smiled more often and he was able to sleep without thinking of the Batgirl with the red hair. Sure they had their ups and downs; what father and daughter didn’t? And they were still here fighting the good fight, although Jim could be fine without knowing that his daughter was the notorious Oracle, but she was never an easy child to begin with.
And sometimes he wished otherwise.
“I know that look,” he said, wiping his moustache with a napkin.
His daughter was a creature of the night. She loved to stay up all night and go to sleep in the wee hours of the morning. That’s why he knew that something was wrong when she paid him an unexpected visit before he had his morning coffee. If it hadn’t been the hour, it would have been the lack of plan. Barbara liked to plan out everything.
“What look?”
“The ‘I haven’t slept for days because my mind can’t stop thinking’ look.”
“I’m sure you are over reacting,” she replied.
“Oh, no,” Jim said behind his cup of black coffee, “You do look like crap.”
“It’s always a pleasure coming here.”
At least she hadn’t lost her sense of humor. Jim didn’t push her. He knew from experience that pushing her would only cause the opposite effect.
“How’s Dinah? The divorce must be hard on her.”
“Not as hard as living with that cad.”
“How you spell that, anyway?” Jim asked matter-of-factly.
“With an ‘a’ dad. I don’t know if you know it, but I’m a woman and I have respect for that part of the female anatomy. Now if both words happen to sound the same that’s hardly my fault, is it?”
Jim looked at her. She looked at him. Four seconds later they were both laughing hard. He missed that more than everything. Talking on the phone wasn’t the same as talking face to face with one another. Some days he missed having her here, but his daughter was a woman now and she needed her personal space.
Being Oracle only complicated things more.
“And what about the Grayson boy? I haven’t seen him in days. You’re still together, right?” He asked and took a sip from his cup.
Barbara flinched. “Very smooth, dad. I didn’t see that one coming from miles away.”
“From the way you are avoiding the question, I have to guess that you’re not seeing each other anymore.”
“We don’t,” she said sad.
Jim stared at her for a long time.
“For crying out loud, he didn’t cheat on me so you can stop staring at me like this! It wasn’t his fault, okay? It was my fault. It is my fault. Dick did nothing. He’s a good man and he deserves better.”
The cup hit the kitchen table with more force than needed. “Better?”
She must have seen the anger in his eyes because she didn’t dare to speak.
“What do you mean better, Barbara?”
“A cripple, dad, okay? He deserves someone that’s not a cripple!”
“Don’t you dare call yourself that word!” he yelled.
“Why not? That’s what I am anyway. You think sugar coating the pill for me will change the fact that I’m nothing more than a cripple?”
“Please, Barbie doll…” it was a plea, but if she heard it she paid no attention to it.
“Will it change the fact that I can’t go to my favorite café because they don’t have a ramp? Or that people look at me as if my condition is contagious? Or that I need two hours just to take a du--?” She stopped. Her dad didn’t have to know that.
Jim had seen his daughter angry before; a lot of times actually. He had never believed the myth for red hair and temper until the day he saw Barbara hit a kid twice her age because he had made fun of her hair. Growing up, she hid that temper behind well calculated moves, but it was always there, just under the surface.
So, to see the anger in her eyes and hear it in her voice shocked him to the core. He could hardly recognize his daughter; her face was misshapen from anger and her green eyes had turned a much darker shade. For the first time in his life, he was afraid of his daughter.
“Stop it, please!”
He wasn’t sure if it was the tone of his voice or the fact that, without realizing it, he had pushed his chair next to her. She blinked a few times as if she only then realized what she was doing and stopped. He saw the tears in her eyes and felt like half a man. His child was hurting and he could do nothing to take the pain away.
No father should feel like this.
“I’m sorry dad,” Barbara wiped her eyes, but the tears kept coming.
“Honey, why are you so angry?”
Her body started to tremble and before he knew it he was hugging her, and stroking her hair, and whispering to her ear that everything was fine.
“It’s not fine,” she said between sobs. “I’m angry all the time.”
His knees were killing him but he didn’t let go. If he couldn’t do something to ease the pain, then he would be there for her. He held her until the trembling stopped. After a while her breathing went back to normal and she sniffed hard inside his ear.
“Are you feeling better now?”
“Somewhat,” she said at the same time the door bell rang.
The last thing Jim wanted was to leave her alone, but she kissed his cheek and let him get up. He gave her a worried look and she tried to smile.
“It will only take me one minute,” Jim assure her and ignoring the protest of his knees, he run to the next room.
He was never as happy as the moment he saw Dinah standing at his front door.
“Are you wearing mascara, Jim?”
“What?” He asked and with his hand wiped his cheek. His fingers went black.
“Babs is still feeling sorry for herself?” Dinah asked with concern and stepped inside.
“I don’t know what to do, Dinah.”
Dinah winked at him. “That’s okay because I have a plan.”
Next Part>/a>
Part One