DISCLAIMER: Batman created by Bob Kane, Batgirl by Bill Finger/ Sherldon Moldoff, TDK trilogy by Christopher Nolan. Also, quite a lot of my characterisation for Babs comes from Gail Simone, who wrote her as the Oracle for years, and more recently as Batgirl for the New 52. If you don't know what I'm on about, read them, they are amazing and what inspired me to do this fic.
A/N ever since I started reading comics, I always wanted Barbara to be in the Nolanverse. I mean, she's clever and sassy and I love her. So now... Ta-daaa! Please R&R
Barbara Gordon Jr, five and a half years old, was vaguely aware there was something… different about her. Her mother had told her she was a very special little girl, and Barbara had asked for a little more detail. She remembered how her mom's mouth had opened and closed- like a goldfish-, and then, how her dad, whom she loved more than anyone else in the entire world, had explained it to her:
"Babs, you've got an eidetic memory," he had said. "What it means is you can remember everything you see and hear, whereas most people can't."
"'Cos you're weird!" yelled her little brother Jimmy Jr, but her mom shushed him and her dad carried on talking.
"You're not weird. You are very, very clever, Babs, which is why you're in a class with eleven year olds and still outperforming them." Sergeant Gordon beamed with pride at her, his moustache curving.
That must be it, then, Barbara thought to herself, sitting in the cramped kitchen one evening a week or so later. She swung her legs to and fro, unable to touch the floor with her toes, and picked at her food absent-mindedly. But… she was still sure there was something else. It was like she was really, really hungry for something- but not food. She couldn't decide what it was. But it was the thing that made her fight harder than anyone else at her karate lessons, the thing that made her read books she could barely carry and learn how to hack computers (but only the simple ones- she wasn't that good yet)- the thing that kept her going.
"Barb, I'm just going to take this outside," said Daddy, holding up two binbags. Their tiny flat in downtown Gotham meant they had communal bins, something Mommy and Barbara refused to go near. Jimmy, however, liked them- he would catch cockroaches scuttling around their base and take them into his bedroom when Mommy and Daddy weren't looking. Barbara wasn't sure what he did with them in there, but he had to keep on getting new ones all the time and he never seemed to have more than one (in a jam jar stuffed down the back of his closet).
"Sure, honey," said Mommy, picking up Jimmy. "Bathtime for you, mister."
To the symphony of Jimmy screaming about his hatred of baths, Barbara climbed up onto the table and watched her dad lean over the balcony railing, just as he did every night. But, on this particular night, something made him freeze as he looked up.
A man swathed in black and darkness was perched on the stairs opposite him.
Barbara gasped, and kneeled up on the table to get a better look at him. The man was wearing a sort of helmet with two pointed earlike things coming off the side, which left only his mouth and chin uncovered so he could talk. The rest of his body was covered in heavy looking black Kevlar (Barbara knew it was Kevlar because she recognised it from the GCP database, which she checked regularly) and he had a bat symbol emblazoned across his chest. A black cape fluttered around him in the night breeze, making him look like a ghost.
Silently, Barbara slid off the table, opened the back door and stepped out onto the balcony, not taking her eyes off the man (but then, was he a man? He seemed so much more than that).
"You're the Batman, aren't you?" she asked, curling her fingers around the bars of the rails and smiling wonderingly at him. "The one Daddy is meant to be catching?"
"Go back inside- no, wait, how do you know that?" asked Daddy, brows furrowed.
"I read your newspapers and your text messages," she said quickly, before returning her attention back to the Batman. She couldn't be sure, but Barbara thought she saw him smile slightly when she said that.
"Are you gonna go an' beat up all the bad guys? Maroni's men? And I knew that from your emails," she added quickly, for Daddy's benefit. Honestly, he needed to set better passwords than just Barbara's name and birthday with all the spaces taken out.
"That depends," said the Batman, talking in a very low, raspy voice. He was definitely smiling now, but then his face- what little she could see of it- straightened, and he looked up at Daddy. "If I can get the right information."
Barbara opened her mouth to ask another question, but her dad put her hand on her back and guided her gently towards the door.
"Back inside now, Babs," he said gently, "and don't tell your mother you came out here." Barbara nodded, and walked back into the kitchen. As the door closed behind her, she heard Batman's comment, and her father's reply.
"Smart kid."
"… I know."