A Long Way 'til Sunrise
By Teala373
Prologue… and so it begins…
Synopsis: Batman imposes restrictions on Barbara's Oracle activities after she is injured, but several enemies & ancient mysteries unfold, putting Barbara in more harm while she & her friends all have their own secret side projects.
Characters: The Bat Family, Birds of Prey, Justice League core members, Roy Harper, Donna Troy & lots of other cameos.
Ships: Barbara/Dick, Bruce/Diana
Disclaimer/Warnings: I seriously own nothing and I have twin sons, so I am also broke. This story borrows from canon and mythology, but much was rewritten (so, lots of purposeful inaccuracies for sake of the story). There is the occasional mild curse word & conversations about sexual situations, but nothing overly graphic.
(o)O(o)
Barbara Gordon had been awake long enough to see the sun rise, set, and then rise again. It was 8:37 p.m. and the Gotham skyline was preparing for another color-soaked sunset. Pausing in her typing, Barbara realized that she was pushing herself to the limit and should try to get some sort of rest before another catastrophe broke out. It took her only a few moments to wrap up the mirage of tasks she had been juggling with the speed and accuracy of the computer she worked on.
Grabbing her cup of decaffeinated tea (her stomach finally revolted against the half-burnt, too-strong coffee that had been keeping her awake over the course of almost 2 days), she wheeled out to the small balcony just outside her kitchen. As she overlooked the bustling city, she drank in the deep colors of the darkening sky as they melted into one another before crashing into the horizon.
She often missed the sunrise, but she caught sunsets when she could. They seemed to be the last pleasant site before the worst of Gotham came out to play…
(o)O(o)
Princess Diana of Themescyra, for she was still able to retain her title through her banishment, watched the setting sun and awaited the coming of the stars. The alignment would tell her how much time she had left. Artemis, one of the patron goddesses of the Amazons, had given her a great task many, many years ago, and she was running out of time…
(o)O(o)
The only reason Batman noticed the sunset was because it alerted him that Robin would soon join him on patrol. The sky no longer held wonder for him as it once did when he was a child; now it was only a rudimentary means of telling time as he watched over the often-fragile city of Gotham…
(o)O(o)
While entering his Bludhaven apartment building, Dick Grayson looked up just in time to catch a scarlet band streaking across the orange-drenched sky. Sunset had always been a magical time for him in his youth: it was the signal of the time he would don his Robin costume and soar across the sky with Batman.
But, those days were long gone…
(o)O(o)
As Tim Drake prepared his jump line, he drank in the bleeding sky as the sun descended. Life was slowly becoming mundane and robotic to him: Eat. School. Patrol. Sleep. Repeat. Enjoying something as simple as a sunset was refreshing for him, something that reminded him that he was alive when he felt dead inside.
However, he hadn't seen a sunrise in a long time…
(o)O(o)
Cassandra Cain was already in her costume and embroiled in a back-alleyway battle with 5 thugs. As she executed a flip to avoid a tackle, the intense display of the Gotham sunset caught her notice for the briefest of moments. Though the sunset was beautiful, it brought with it the night.
And the night always brought out the worst…
(o)O(o)
Dinah Lance knew it was only a matter of time before the Oracle dispatched her. She glanced at the tube in her hand and determined that she would risk the 5 minutes the entire ritual would take. As she squeezed out the thick green paste and slathered it across her face, she caught site of the melting colors in the sky in the mirror. She finished applying the mask and vaguely wondered if she would get to see a Gotham sunrise, or if she would be sent to some remote location in a part of the world she couldn't pronounce…
(o)O(o)
Helena Bertenelli sat cross-legged on a large rooftop ledge and watched the sky ablaze with color. She couldn't remember the last time she felt so guilty, or so sad. She wondered if the tables were turned, would she have made such a sacrifice as the one that had been done for her. She wondered if her life would always be a series of sunsets, but never a sunrise…
(o)O(o)
The sun was always setting and it was a long way 'til sunrise…
(o)O(o)
(o)O(o)
Author's Note: Um, I have been working on this one for an embarrassing long amount of time, but really want to finish. It's long, it's complicated and it's loosely based on where these characters were a decade ago (I am getting old!), but I'm still attached and want to see it through. Even though this is mostly centered around Barbara Gordon and the "Bat-family", there are quite a few DC and Marvel characters in here. I borrow stuff from canon and Greek mythology, but I re-wrote most of it just for sake of the story, so there are a LOT of purposeful inaccuracies. Then, I basically ruin everyone's lives before putting them back together, but for those of you that ship Barbara/Dick and Bruce/Diana there's a light at the end of a very long tunnel…