Before you read, please read this note: Hiya! So, I've been replaying Arkham Origins and I noticed the server room has a work space set up in it that is...very well lived in. And, since we don't see Eddie's desk anywhere in game, I took the idea of him working there and ran with it. But who, canonically, spends a lot of time in the server room? Babs. So this was basically an experiment of "what if, before the Riddler, before Batgirl, before Origins, they knew each other and were friendly?" Gotta say, I'm intrigued with it. I hope y'all enjoy it! Feedback is much appreciated, especially as this is my first time writing a full fic with either of them. Cheers!

"Oh, come on Eddie," she pleaded, leaning on the railing above him with the kind of puppy dog eyes Edward felt should be illegal.

"No, absolutely not," he rebutted, adjusting his glasses. "Don't you have something better to do? Can't you go watch tv in your father's office or text your friends or…whatever it is you do?"

"No," she laughed, though it wasn't derisive and that was the only thing keeping her laughter from being annoying. She ducked down to sit on the stairs beside him. "I'm not asking for access to the station's files, just for internet access."

"Barbara, your father would kill me."

"No, he wouldn't. Please, Eddie, you're the only one here who could help me."

Even in the dim light of the server room, she could see him flush at the words. He tried and failed to look busy with his laptop, the harsh green glare made him look almost sallow. Smoke from his cigarette, forgotten on the ashtray, curled sinuously upwards, wrapping around the solitary desk lamp like a lover. Edward's cuff links—which she abruptly realized were shaped like question marks—sat momentarily discarded on the side of the desk after he'd rolled up his sleeves. He's going to say no, she thought, heart sinking. Sure, she could break through the firewall herself, but it would take time and, if she got caught, she really didn't want to be lectured about it.

He sucked in a sharp breath.

"Fine," he said crisply, not looking up from his work. He gestured to the empty desk-space to his left and, grinning, she pulled her laptop from her bag and set it on the table.

Barbara glanced around the room, impatiently waiting for her computer to start up. There had always been something eerie about this room. The dim lights, the winding rows of servers that made the large room cramped and confining. For some unknown reason, the vents in the floor kept filling the air with mist, making the room look like the lair of some villain in a video game. More than once she'd found herself thinking of the server room as Edward's lair, though his desk was technically located elsewhere. It was almost painfully cold.

"How did you know I was here?"

"Ed, you basically live here."

Judging by the wrinkles in his slacks and the number of coffee cups and takeout containers in the nearby trash can, he'd been here a while. Barbara wanted to ask why he didn't go home—wasn't there anyone there who missed him? Wouldn't it be more comfortable there than in the precinct?—and if anyone knew he was staying when he was supposed to be off the clock again. Instead, she said: "Rough case?"

"N—uh, yes, actually. You might call it that." His gloved fingers tapped out a sharp staccato on her keyboard and she settled back down onto the stairs to wait.

The faint whirring of electronics filled the air between them and Barbara found it almost relaxing. A nice reprieve from the chaos of the bullpen and not as lonely and stifling as her father's office. For all his brusqueness, Edward had never outright complained about her being around. Sometimes he even seemed glad for company—sometimes he was quiet, focused on whatever it was he was doing, but more often than not he ended up talking at her about various subjects until he was pulled away or her father came to tell her it was time to go home.

"Here's a riddle I'm having a hard time understanding," he finally told her, leaning back in his chair to stare at her over his glasses. "What are you doing here?"

"That's not a riddle, Eddie," she told him with a faint smile. "And I already told you why I'm here; I need internet access without the precinct's firewall getting in the way."

"That isn't what I meant, and you know it, Barbara. Why are you here? The precinct's not exactly safe—especially for you."

This time she couldn't help but laugh, shaking her head. "You sound like my father. Look, I'm not afraid of these cops. And-and I have a Taser if anyone tries to follow me here after school. I'm not helpless."

He blinked, taken aback at her casual admittance of being...for lack of a better term, armed. She could see the doubt creep back in, though, smothering his surprise. He ran a hand through his hair. "That's not—" he broke off with a sigh— "You really don't understand what they could do. Jim is...not like most of the force."

"I know they don't all like dad—"

"And what do you think that means if they decide to do something about it?"

She looked down at the floor, staring at her boots as contemplatively. Her father had said similar things before—that the cops were corrupt and might act out against them in retribution. He'd been trying to warn her for a while now. And, though she'd listened to him, she'd never taken it seriously. There were always going to be conflicting interests on the force, especially in a city as corrupt as Gotham. No one would do anything...would they? "Is it really that bad?"

He offered her a short nod and she thought he almost seemed to regret bringing up the subject. She wanted to say it was all paranoia; that her father and Harvey and Edward were all just imagining a worst case scenario, but the more they said the more she began to realize that there had to be a place they were speaking from. Things they'd heard or past experience. Barbara flexed her hand, repressing the urge to fidget with the strings of her coat.

"They do this to everyone that isn't on the take, don't they?" His silence was an answer enough and she hesitantly cleared her throat. "And...you?"

He looked away, turning his attention back to his screen, and it solidified her suspicions. Anger flared in her gut. She thought about the few friends her father had—how tired and overworked they always looked. What were the others on the force putting them through? What was going on that the public would never hear about? The system was so broken; the pieces didn't even resemble the whole anymore. Barbara jolted to her feet, unsure what she was going to do, just that she needed to do something. "Those bastards."

Edward caught her arm as she turned towards the door, pulling her back until she gave in and came to lean against the desk. The half-smile he gave her seemed bittersweet. "You don't think you're going to take on the entire GCPD by yourself, do you?"

"I don't know. I-I just feel like I should do something. Don't you?"

He did, but there was no need to inform her of the steady stockpile of information he'd been collecting, nor of any of his other work. The police would be less than pleased, but that's why he wasn't planning on uploading it through the GCPD. He would be working off site, carefully covering his tracks. It was just…taking some time. He wouldn't pretend it wasn't somewhat self-serving—even though most of what he had he intended on releasing without ransoming it, some of it? Oh, no, some of the information was the kind of thing worth lording over someone's head. Perhaps that perverted his work, perhaps not. Edward wasn't in this line of work to question the morality of his own choices.

Barbara gave him all of five minutes of thoughtful silence before she cast a glance toward her laptop. "Do you think it'll take very much longer?"

Edward started, clearly having put the laptop from his mind for the moment. "It started updating when I connected it."

She wasn't sure if she was exasperated or not that he hadn't mentioned it was all but ready ages ago. Instead, she settled on gratitude. No one else in the precinct would have helped her and she was glad for his assistance. "Thanks, Eddie. I owe you a hot chocolate—the good kind!"

"Promises," he taunted with an amused snort. "What do you need to look at so badly, anyway?"

"EBay," she replied lightly, reaching across him to lift her laptop into her arms.

"I…EBay?"

"I've been bidding on some new equipment."

He looked up toward the door and the empty hallway barely visible through the barred window beside it and then back at Barbara, leaning toward her almost conspiratorially. "That's what this is all about?" He leaned back, moving his glasses out of the way just enough to rub tiredly at the bridge of his nose. "I knew it; your father is going to kill me."

"Dad's not going to kill you, Eddie," she assured him almost distractedly. "Wish me luck that I can get this as cheap as they're asking. Maybe we could find you a hat with what I have left."