Chapter 1

Oracle

Looking up from her computer, Barbara heard a quite familiar SWOOSH sound. She smirked as she turned her wheelchair around. She may not be a crime fighting brawler anymore but she knew he still needed her. She could see right through his extremely stoic personality.

"How may I help you this evening Mister Wayne?" She turned back to her computer, filled with live feed of very hidden cameras planted throughout Gotham. "I'm busy watching the Arkham soap opera." As she leaned in to see Poison Ivy in her cell at Arkham Asylum.

With a tone of curiousity in his voice he began trying to form a sentence. The thing was, this wasn't how Bruce - Batman was. "Alfred..." His posture changed, he went from a puffed out chest stance to his shoulders slumped into defeat. Barbara rolled closer, looking up at him noting his eyes were empty. "He...he's gone missing. I know you're the only one that can help me Barbara, Oracle." She attempted to wrap her arms around his waist but he gently pushed her back.

She removed her glasses, they were starting to get foggy from her tears. "W-what do you mean missing?" Alfred was a second father to her, and he meant even more to Batman. Alfred has watched them grow from silly little children to the super heroes that they were today. As much as it pained her to admit it most days, she was no longer Batgirl but she was still someone important, she was Oracle. The one and only.

"Can you run any sort of program?! Something...anything! I need to find him...before it's too late, if it isn't already." The panic in Batman's voice let her know this was beyond a simple missing butler. This was hell for Bruce and a nightmare for Barbara. "I'll go scan the city for anything I might find to lead me to him." Before Barbara could say anything, suggest anything, he zipped his way out of her fortress hiding in plain sight; The Clocktower.

Since she couldn't fight her way through Gotham anymore, she built a hide away where she could be her own type of Super hero, without the mask. The Clocktower was home now. Here she was in complete solitude, yet still surrounded. Free from judgement, free from a strangers stare. This place made her feel useful again, made her feel powerful. Her computers, her games, all of her technology, it all actually helped people. She helped people. But with every ounce of happiness and pride, came a pound of sorrow. Becoming Oracle came at a horrible, unwanted, frustrating, price.

When the sun finally set and she could see the full moon from the face of the clock, she wheeled into her bedroom and began to drown in the sorrow she was feeling. "Pull it together Barbara! You need to find Alfred!" After the many years of being Oracle it didn't take her too long to build a program that would look for DNA, finger prints, and even vocal patterns that matched Alfred's. The program had been scanning for about two hours as Barbara was lying in her bed drinking more than a one or two glasses of wine. There was a sudden alarm that startled her from a drunken haze. "Alfred!" She screamed as she bolted up and began to swing her legs off the bed, for a second forgetting that she couldn't walk. She squeezed her eyes shut in frustration.

"Fuck..." She climbed into her wheelchair, with the famous Bat Family logo on the bigger wheels. Rolling as fast as she could push herself while being mildly drunk. "Show results." she slurred. She wasn't sure if she should be happy with what she found or worried, or both. There was a DNA match leading from Wayne manor to Arkham Asylum. She rubbed her temples. Who could possibly want Alfred in Arkham Asylum? This had to be a trap, a very elaborate trap.