8626/Barbara Gordon's day off

Barbara Gordon's day off
Date of Scene:	02 August 2019
Location:	Clocktower
Synopsis:	Batman comes to check on Barbara after her last patrol
Cast of Characters:	Oracle, Batman

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Oracle has posed:
It's not but a few hours hence she was laying on the roof of building half conscious after taking the business end of a proper ass whoopin at the hands of one Stockholm. Barbara is laid up on her couch now, having visited Doctor Thompson to get her face stitched up and some pain killers for the splitting headache that accompanies her fractured orbital bone. Lee had told her she'd been lucky.. that the injury could have been a lot worse.. but if she's being honest, she doesn't feel lucky at all.

She feels like ass.

She's back in her pajama pants, something cartoonish and cat themed, and she's wearing bunny slippers.. there's soup nearby that she's not eating, it's probably cold, and she's got an ice pack from her freeze slapped on her swallen eye like a boxer. Her left eye is completely closed.. the whole left side of her face looks like mutilated hamburger.. like she was in the ring with an MMA fighter and decided to just lay there while they pummeled her.

Love Actually is on the TV. It's her happy Rom-Com.

She needs happy right now.

"That was stupid... god that was stupid."

Batman has posed:
"I read your report," the Batman's voice comes from a darkened corner of the apartment, the light of the television only enough to illuminate a faint outline of him, "I'm looking for leads on Pettersson. She's going back to Arkham, Barbara. For good. I promise you that."

The computer network employed by Batman and his allies is one of the most sophisticated, bleeding edge technological accomplishments on the face of the Earth. WayneTech satellites uniquely repurposed for its functioning allow them to transmit messages to each other with almost no latency from anywhere on the globe. Sub-vocal microphones and advanced earpieces allow themm to speak as if they are standing alongside one another even hundreds of miles apart.

In short, Bruce did not need to come here to tell her that.

He leaves the corner now, striding across the apartment to pause by the display case that contains the uniform designed specifically for Batgirl. Many iterations on, of course, but the same basic design. He looks at it carefully and in silence for a long while, cowled head tilting slightly as he releases the latch and opens the case. He takes a sleeve in one gloved hand, holding it out to inspect it.

"I remember when you first earned this."

Oracle has posed:
Barbara glances up and over the back of the couch at the sound of his voice, but she's no longer startled by his sudden arrival. She's long stopped being surprised.. "Good." She says, falling back down on the couch where a stack of pillows are providing her the only real comfort she feels outside the pills Doctor Thompson gave her. "It wasn't her though.. It was.. but..." Talking is difficult with her stitches.

"I shouldn't have been out there. I should have been sitting right there in that chair." Pointing at the computer that is Oracle. She put the suit back away in the display case, but she didn't clean it first. There's blood down the front and the cowl is cracked right across the front where it cross over the bridge of her nose. There's small slashes that never quite make it through the thin layer of nomex armor...

It doesn't look as bad as she does, but it looks bad.

"I'm not that person anymore." She says, so many meanings behind that statement, buried beneath the ice pack slammed against the swollen cheek.. there's a quiet hiss.. but it comes to late for it to have actually hurt.

"It was a good night..."

She says finally, the night she'd earned the suit. "I was so proud. You know who my first was... not that night, but.. MY first... on my own." She knows he knows... It was Stockholm. "Imagine how I feel right now."

Batman has posed:
"I know," Batman says, "I saw the alert saying you'd gone on patrol. I was ... surprised. But I never thought it was a horse you'd want to get back on. If you ever did, I always thought it would be for old time's sake. To remember something, rather than forget."

He lets the sleeve of the uniform go, letting it fall back into place within the display case. He lifts his hand now to the mask, brushing a thumb over it lightly to wipe away a smear of blood. Fastidiousness or hidden meaning. The Bat makes nothing clear on that score.

"I always knew this would come," he explains, "Not you, specifically, but this moment. The resignation. Retirement. Whatever you call it. Thought it would be Tim first ... "

The Bat's hand continues to cup the mask in the display case, staring at it for a long while entirely lost in his thoughts. His expression, as always, unreadable.

"I suppose I'm just glad you're not leaving," a jerk of his head in the direction of the impressive computer array, "Not really. Maybe this is ... promotion. Evolution? Didn't bring you a gold watch and a plaque."

Oracle has posed:
"I haven't been doing it for a long time." Babs sighs, shaking her head behind the couch where she can't see him looking at that broken mess of a suit, a costume... a mask she'd not even considered putting on in 9 months. 9 months, almost to the day. "I don't know what I was thinking, but I didn't expect to run into someone.. I just wanted to fly one more time."

They both know Babs has been mentoring Spoiler to take the cowl. It might not be something they've discussed, but they don't discuss much anymore. Messages on a headset.. reports on a screen. It's the first time she's actually laid eyes on Bruce in five months or more.. and even now she wont sit up to actually do so.

"Well... I'm sorry to disappoint you." She actually means that, but there's the usual light sprinkle of snark. Some nights she wonders if she was making a mistake resigning one costume for another.. physical for digital.. but tonight things made perfect sense. Everything was crystal clear.

"You're not really a watch and a plaque kind of guy, Bruce. You came.." The words trail off and she finally does sit up, actually it's more like pull her self up, to look over at him. Let him see her and let her see him, "I'm glad you did. It means a lot."

Batman has posed:
"Owe it to you. You sacrificed a great deal for this uniform," the Bat only now lets his hand fall away from the uniform in the case, stepping back to reverently close it and slide the latch into the lock position, "Almost sacrificed everything. You'll ... never understand how grateful I am. For everything."

He leaves the case now, walking towards the couch to stand and look at her. He's stoic as always. The cape and cowl drawn about his shoulders in such a way as to leave even his body language unreadable. A monolith of unspoken thoughts and unknowable emotions.

"I'm sorry."

For what, he doesn't say. Elaboration he does not give. Instead the subject changes, with all the crisp, cool efficiency that is his hallmark.

"Stephanie's almost ready. Already replaced some of her kit. Time to replace the rest. Time for the Spoiler to end."

He gestures beside her on the couch, a metallic suitcase resting there where moments before there had not been one. Even after all these years, the Batman is still full of surprises.

"Time for a new Batgirl. You should be the one to give it to her."

Oracle has posed:
There are some mornings whenre the electronic neural weave that reconnect her spine aches.. whenre the plating used to fuse her spine into something that doesn't leave her an immobile lump of flesh hurts so bad she wants to cry, but she doesn't. Not even when it's at it's worst, she looks herself in the mirror and swallows it back. Barbara is a lot of things, but a coward isn't one of them.

In so many ways she's better than she's ever been, though current situations may fog the line a little with her injuries. Someone else never would have made it off that roof... a weaker woman... a weaker MAN.. would have laid up there and died.

"I know."

She doesn't elaborate either. There's no mistaking that she believes him, the look in her eyes isn't any different now than it's ever been whenn she looks up at the monolith, but she's keenly more aware than most.

She nods steadily, slowly at first, and then more agreeably at his assessment of Stephanie, "I've reviewed her lass few engagements. She's been ready for a month." She wants to think he kept his decision back incase Barbara changed her mind, but she doubted it. Nor would she ever say it.. it wouldn't change anything regardless of the answer.

When he motions, she looks down at the black case that has appeared upon the end of the couch, but she's not surprised. Only two humans on earth have spent as much time around the Batman as she has.

"When?" She asks with her attention back up at the shadowy figure...

And half expects him to already be gone.

Batman has posed:
Batman remains standing there. The moment to leave, to cut the conversation short as he has done countless times in the past, has passed without incident. A silent token of esteem for the now-retired Batgirl. A show of his respect.

"When you're ready," he says quietly, the voice not the grave tones of Batman but the less fearsome ones of Bruce Wayne, "This is your decision to make. Your legacy. Your name she's going to have to live up to."

He turns now, stepping towards the window and pausing there by it.

"I'd like to be there when you do, though. Made her training ... difficult. Tried to run her off. Make her quit." His mouth curls into the faint half-smile that is so quintessentially him, "The usual. She weathered all that. She should know I'm proud of her. She should hear me say it."

Oracle has posed:
Barbara IS surprised to see him standing over her, but it's not the shock that seems startling when the door thrusts open to a smiling face wielding a long barreled, high caliber pistol. It's the little quirk over a brow. The eye isn't swollen that with the icepack sitting over top it, but the bruising is extensive enough that tomorrow very well might be. Slowly she lowers the icepack so he can really look at her. See the bruises, the busted lip, the left eye with blood pooled around the iris.

"I was ready nine months ago." She says quietly, accepting it now, and feeling a weight lifting off her like hundreds of pounds dropped haphazardly to the floor. She'll never regret what she did, who she was, and the difference she made while she wore that cowl. That old costume will remain a memory forever in her life behind glass and metal frame, but she'll take on a new mask full time.

Where she can better protect the ones that follow the path she and Dick laid. The ones that march beside the Batman. "I'll let her know we need to talk to her in the cave." She says quietly, trailing after him as he makes his way towards the open window. "I'd like to stay in my old room that night... if that's okay." She'd not stayed at the manor in over a year. She'd visited, but it was only a temporary stop.

She knows he'll agree. She's earned that.

"You should." Others might see that look and... who knows what they think. The Knights that follow the crusade are as hard to read sometimes as Batman himself, but they all think something different. Barbara will always have a singular memory.. and even now it makes her smile a little as she does right now. "She deserves to hear you say so." All of them do, but not all of them will.

In a way that's what Babs is there for. To be their shoulder when they need it and the smile when they succeed.

Everyone has a purpose in the Bat Family.