Chapter 4
Barbara handles herself well in a crisis.
Growing up as the daughter of the police chief will do that to you. Throughout elementary and middle school, she spent her afternoons drawing and doing homework at her dad’s desk. She watched him handle Gotham’s endless slew of emergencies with grace and calm.
When she became Batgirl, she knew from the very beginning that she couldn’t afford to panic when things got hard.
Bruce was already looking for any reason to make her stop, and there was no way in hell she’d give him one.
When she became Oracle, she became the person to turn to in a crisis.
Being chased through by the villain of the week, and need time to regroup? No problem, Oracle’s found a way to lose them. Turn left.
Caught in a shoot out and need backup? You don’t even need to ask, Spoiler’s already en route. ETA five minutes.
Riddler is making obscure references related to a war from the 19th century and you’re ‘not a goddamn history major, what the fuck happened to his usual shit’? It’s the Crimean War, and B said Eddie’s going through a phase. You’re welcome, Hood.
The point being, panic is not a luxury she can afford. Panic leads to mistakes, and mistakes get people killed.
Still, while Barbara might handle herself well in a crisis, Dick screaming is never a sound she’ll get used to.
It was not a quiet night, because unlike some people, she wasn’t dumb enough to say that out loud, or even think it. But the night was slow.
She was in the cave. It certainly wasn’t ideal compared to the comfort and familiarity of her Clocktower, but she installed new software to the Batcomputer, and needed to show the users how to operate it without causing a catastrophe of technological proportions.
She was monitoring a meeting between the bosses of the Blue Devils and the Fighting Dogs, two new players on Gotham’s drug scene. They’re almost as dumb as their names suggest. They didn’t even check the warehouse for bugs before they started. Amateurs.
So far, it’s the usual. The idiots somehow believe they’re the only people who deal drugs in the entirety of Gotham. They’re carving up territory like a Thanksgiving turkey, including Crime Alley. Jason’s going to be pissed when she passes the info to him.
Bruce and Damian are out in uniform, but they’re not patrolling. There was a nasty double homicide last night in Bristol, one that needs investigating. Still, she checks in with them every once in a while, and pulls records if they ask.
Jason’s supposedly off comms, but unlike Dick and Bruce, Barbara knows he’s intercepting a drug shipment for Black Mask, drugs he intended to sell near Crime Alley’s sole high school. There will almost certainly be bloodshed.
Jason doesn’t want her involved, but she still monitors his tracker, and breathes a small sigh of relief when he moves away from the docks.
So for tonight, it’s mostly just her and Dick.
Dick’s patrolling for the first time in weeks after an injury, taking over Steph’s patrol route. She’s out with a nasty case of the flu, and Dick covering in her stead was the only way she could be convinced to stay in bed.
If Dick used Steph’s stubborn nature to convince Bruce to let him off the bench, Barbara won’t comment on it.
A little after two a.m., as the drug cartels are wrapping up, Dick calls in.
“Hey, O, I’ve got a potential suicide in progress at Kensington Bridge. I’m approaching now.”
Barbara hums in affirmative. Suicides, in her opinion, are worst part of the job. There’s no bad guy, nothing to punch or hit.
It’s not like a code, there’s nothing to reprogram, no glitch or bug to find.
There’s nothing you can fix. It’s just a person versus themselves.
Still, if anyone can help, it’s Dick. Batman might be Gotham’s protector, but Nightwing is Her light. He’s easy to talk to, someone to lean on. Somehow, when he says that everything is going to be ok, you believe it.
Barbara knows what her job is. When Dick talks the person off the bridge, or catches them before they fall, she’ll pull their ID. She’ll alert the proper authorities, and tag them in her system, keep track of them. It’s something done by all of Gotham’s vigilantes. Helping someone doesn’t always stop in a single night. Gotham doesn’t need patch jobs, She needs to be healed.
Barbara listens to Dick, and her heart twinges in sympathy when she realizes he’s talking to a kid.
But her entire world is flipped upside down, yet again, when she hears the next words to come out of his mouth.
“…Thea?”
She sits up straight, and is reaching to respond when Dick starts screaming. She swears violently.
She doesn’t know what Dick is seeing, but it can’t be Thea. Thea is… she’s gone.
She forces herself to think.
Dick is seeing someone that’s not there. He's hallucinating. And when you’re in Gotham, that almost always means drugs. He sounds scared, he sounds upset, which probably means fear gas. It’s times like these that she misses Batgirl the most. When she could be out in the field. When she could be there.
But she’s not, and Dick needs help.
She checks the trackers, and a second later she’s on Jason’s line.
“Hood, I need you to get to Kensington Bridge, now. I think Nightwing’s been dosed, probably fear gassed. You’re closest.”
She doesn’t give him time to respond, and unmutes herself on Dick’s channel. He’s still screaming.
“N, I need you to calm down. Whatever you’re seeing, it isn’t real.”
Dick is hysterical when he responds.
“Babs, it was Thea. T-the jumper. Oh my god, she’s gone.”
Barbara shoves down the wave of grief that wells up inside her, threatening to spill over.
“Nightwing. Where are you right now?”
She’s calm, she’s cool, she’s collected.
She’s this close to losing her shit.
“A-at the edge of the river, I grappled down. I can’t find her. I think I lost her a-again.”
Dick’s hyperventilating, and Oracle doubles down.
“Red Hood is on the way. He’s going to be there in six minutes. I’m going to need you to step away from the river. You can’t help anyone if you fall in.”
Dick sniffles in response. The next six minutes are an experience Barbara never wants to repeat. She talks Dick down from entering the freezing cold waters seven times, wishing more than anything that she was there with him. He spends every second babbling about a dead girl.
When Jason’s tracker is close to Dick, she switches him to their channel.
“-at the goddamn bridge, what the fuck is going on Barbie? Hello?”
Jason sounds pissed, which for him, is normal.
“Hood, you’re on with Wing and I. He’s at the river’s edge.”
Hood swears like a sailor being told they have five minutes left to live, which for him, is normal.
She watches his tracker move down, until it’s almost on top of Dick’s.
“It was Thea.”
Dick’s voice is wrecked, hoarse and quiet.
Jason doesn’t say anything, which for him, is not normal.
“Please, we can’t leave. She’s in there.”
Jason finally speaks. “You’re seeing things, Big Bird. She ain’t there.”
He’s soft and gentle. Dick is not.
“I am not seeing things,” he hisses. Barbara hears someone being shoved, likely Jason. “I’m not fucking crazy, and I am not going to leave my sister to drown in a goddamn river.”
There’s silence, a gasp, a swear, and a thud.
“…Hood,” Barbara asks tiredly. “Did you drug him.”
Jason ignores her question. “I’m bringing him back to the cave. I already jabbed him with the antidote.”
Comms are silent after that. About ten minutes in, Bruce calls to let her know him and Damian are on the way back. They made the arrest. Barbara tells him Dick’s been fear gassed.
For all her strengths, she can’t bring herself to mention anything else.
She rewrites the same piece of code seventeen times, tells herself she needs to make it better. She is focusing on the code, and nothing else.
The Batmobile arrives first. Damian practically leaps out.
“Where is Richard?” He demands.
Bruce shuts down the car, and turns to Barbara as well.
“Jason’s bringing him back. They’re about two minutes away. He already got the antidote.”
She stays focused on the computer, because she might scream if she thinks about anything else.
“Tt. Todd is not suited to assuage fear gas hallucinations. You should have called father and I instead,” Damian says accusingly.
Barbara is very, very tired. But she is also dealing with a ten year old, so she reminds herself to be patient. She turns around.
“Jason was closer,” she explains. “Dick needed help as soon as possible.”
Damian still looks skeptical, so Bruce steps in.
“Damian, Barbara knows what she’s doing. She knows more about the situation than we do, and I trust her to make the best possible decisions. Now, if you could please go and get ready for bed. You have an English quiz tomorrow.”
Damian has a sour look on his face. “I did not inform you of that quiz.”
“I’m aware. But your teacher sends out daily emails.”
“Treachery!”
Bruce is a very patient father. “This is normal for the 5th grade.”
“It’s humiliating and infantilizing, and I will not stand for it! Besides, I insist on staying to see Richard.”
Barbara has a feeling that the little twerp is stalling for that exact reason, and luckily for him, it works. Jason’s motor bike roars into the cave not a second later.
Dick’s slumped over in the front, Jason supporting him with one hand.
“Todd! What on Earth did you do to Richard?!” Damian exclaims in outrage. He rushes towards Dick and Jason, trailed carefully by Bruce.
“Shove off, brat. It was for his own good. Besides, it’ll wear off soon.” He parks the bike, and hoists Dick up and off the bike. He ignores Damian, still shouting, and shoulder checks Bruce as he walks. He drops Dick onto a med-bay cot.
“I’m out of here,” he mutters.
Damian insists he stays, so he can be punished for his mishandling of Dick. Bruce gives him a pleading look, one he stoutly ignores. He’s walking for the door, when Barbara calls out to him.
“Jason, can you stay? Please?”
He stops and turns around. They make eye contact.
Right now, they’re the only ones who know what happened.
Right now, both of their scars have been cut open.
Right now, they’re bleeding the same.
Barbara can handle herself in a crisis, but she doesn’t want to talk about this alone.
He exhales shakily, from anger or grief, she can’t tell.
“Yeah, okay.”
Bruce turns to her. He’s pulled off the cowl, and right now, he’s not a creature of the night, he’s not invincible. He’s just a man in a bat costume. He glances between the two of them, the slumped shoulders, the dull eyes. He knows something is wrong.
“What happened?” He’s not asking about the fear gas, there’s something more.
Barbara breathes in deeply. She can handle herself in a crisis.
“Dick called in, told me he was approaching a suicide on Kensington Bridge-“
Jason interrupts her.
“Dickiebird got fucking dosed with something, and I had to drug him so he didn’t try to jump in the goddamn river. Is that what you wanted to hear, old man? Or d’ya wanna hear about how he started hallucinating Thea?”
The cave is silent. Jason is all anger. Barbara feels like she can’t breathe. Damian is as quiet as the child he is. Dick whimpers in his sleep.
Bruce is just a man in a bat costume.