One

When her cell phone rings at one in the morning, Barbara isn't too surprised that Dick is the one calling. Who else could it be at such an hour?

"Dick?" She tries to take the sleep out of her voice, but doesn't succeed.

"Hey. I'm sorry to wake you. I'm outside your window, can I come in?"

She gets up immediately and opens it up for him. "What happened?"

He sighs and she can see how tired he is even though he'd never admit. "The mission… it didn't go as planned."

They both sit on her bed and she's afraid to ask it, but she has to know. "Is… is everyone okay?"

He sighs again and shakes his head. "No. Aquagirl died."

Her mouth opens in horror despite her best efforts. "It was her first mission."

"Yeah. Everything was fine, we had it under control and then… then one of the goons we thought was down shot her. No one saw it coming." They stay silent for a while and he runs a hand through his hair. "Do you see now why wanting to join the team is crazy? She was good, Babs, she was well trained, she had powers, she was smart, and still…"

"Don't try to use this situation to dissuade me, Dick. I'm very, very sorry you lost a friend today. But in this line of work, I'll be in danger whether I'm in the team or not. You won't change my mind."

He looks her in the eye for the first time and she hates that he's so closed up right now that she can't read him. Then, he hugs her, arms tight around her waist, nose breathing in her neck. "You're so damn stubborn."

She hugs him back and considers for a bit. Her natural response to that would be a chuckle, but it feels highly inappropriate now. And it's true, she is stubborn. But he can't force his decisions on her, can't try to protect her. He is her best friend and she's pretty sure he always will be, but there are limits, and when her abilities are questioned, well, that's where she draws the line.

"We should sleep, Dick, you look dead on your feet."

He pulls away a little and she thinks he's going to deny it and go patrolling or something, but what he does instead is so out of her mind that she can't comprehend it for a few seconds: he is kissing her.

To be fair, this isn't the first time they kissed. They kissed on his fourteenth birthday because of spin the bottle. They also did that on his fifteenth and sixteenth birthday for the same reasons. And they also did it on her fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth because it seemed unfair that they only ever did it in his. And maybe they've been each other New Year's kisses every year since then.

But, still, this is different. He is kissing her like he truly wants to, like he's been waiting for this opportunity for some time. And while they can hardly be considered friends with benefits, they do have some sort of intimacy that would make this kind of okay at a few other situations.

What shocks her more, though, is how intently she is responding. Kissing Dick is always great – he's a great kisser and her best friend – but right now it feels like she couldn't possibly be doing anything better. He's never been so hungry before, and quite honestly, neither has she.

She only notices how far this is going when his hands find their ways under her pajama top and she feels no need to stop it. Instead, she forces him back and lays them both on the bed, hovering him.

This is a new territory for them. She isn't a virgin and she knows he isn't either, but they'd never gone further than kissing, not even making out. Still, it feels easy and it feels right and she lets him touch her anywhere, just like she touches him.

This is the first time they ever sleep together and when they're almost asleep later she wonders if it'll be the last.

Two

Barbara can hardly believe it when she hears it aloud and she was there. She saw it happening. She saw the moment he changed his target to them and left with Black Manta. It still sounds unbelievable.

Dick is absurdly quiet as they make their way to the batcave and she can see he's tense by how tighten his jaw is. It isn't just that, though. He seems edgy.

She can't really think on how much that's probably hurting him. Kaldur is – was – one of his oldest friends. He's been there since the beginning; he is one of the founders of the team.

Tula's death is recent and Kaldur has been on a temporary leave since. When he asked to come back, Dick was eager to say yes. His friend needed this, needed company. They could never have imagined…

It's her second week with the team, so everything is still new to her. She didn't know Kaldur all that much. But still, she feels tears filling her eyes as she thinks about the betrayal. She looks over at Dick and feels like crying for him too. It's all so unfair.

As they enter the cave, Dick automatically moves to the main computer. She stands there, unsure of what to do. Does he need to be alone? He surely would want to, but is it really the best for him? She walks over, uncertain, and takes in his expression, brighten by the computer light.

"Dick?" She knows he heard her, but he doesn't stop typing. "Maybe you shouldn't work right now. Come on, you need a shower and a full night of sleep."

"Thanks, Babs, but I can't."He replies dryly and she notices something is wrong.

She looks at him, really looks. His shoulders are tense and his jaw is tighten and even though he still has his mask, she knows his eyes are blown wide and fixed. It clicks.

"Dick." She starts, kneeling in front of him and holding his face with both her hands to make him look at her. "It's not your fault."

His expression changes at that. He's vulnerable now. She takes off his mask and without thinking whether or not it's a good idea, she kisses him.

It takes him a few moments, but eventually he responds. His arms find their ways around her waist and soon she is in his lap. He's desperate in his ministrations and she doesn't stop it because she knows he needs this. He has to be feeling the most mixed emotions. He's probably angry, hurt, guilt. He needs the release and she feels somewhat good knowing she is the one that can give it to him.

She remembers they're on the batcave and that having sex in Batman's chair probably isn't the best idea. Dick takes the hint when she starts climbing out of his lap without breaking mouth contact.

"How…" he starts in between kisses. "How about that shower?"

They stumble together towards the nearest bathroom and she has time to think that this might be a bad idea, but she doesn't. It's been a little over a month since they first had sex and they never spoke of it. Still, she remembers the feel of his body pressed against her and she feels how much he wants her right now and she knows how much he – maybe she, too – needs it.

She clears her head of everything that isn't him and closes the bathroom door behind her. She can over think things tomorrow.

Tonight is about feelings.

Three

To be honest, she doesn't really know how it all started. Was it her? It could have been him. She doesn't know. She doesn't remember. His lips are everywhere, but so are hers. They're fighting for dominance in a way that never happened before. Granted, they've only been together twice, and it had been a while ago. But this is different.

She is numb. Her whole body feels like it doesn't belong to her and she can't really feel anything. All she feels is how desperate and wired on andcrazy Dick is as he presses her against the wall. They're both looking for an escape, for a release, for anything that will just blank their minds. Alcohol had been involved at some point, she thinks. She doesn't feel drunk, but he tastes a little like vodka, and her breath smells like it too.

But she is very aware of what they're doing. She doesn't know how they got to it, doesn't remember the transaction from the dead and bloody body in front of them to this. But she understands the situation. She wants to forget and so does he. Can they even call it sex? It seems too pure a name for such a dirty purpose.

He holds both her legs and forces them up, and she uses the leverage to hook them around his waist. This is going too slow, but too fast at the same time. She wonders when her mind will go numb as well, at what point of this whole thing she'll just stop thinking. It doesn't hurt anymore, because she can't focus, she can't comprehend it.

She pushes his torso and he walks backwards until they both fall on the bed. She straddles his hips and moves and his groans are a mix of pleasure and despair and then she's feeling it too.

It's real. Jason is dead.

He pulls her closer and closer until it's hard to breathe, but she doesn't break away. He kisses her hungrily, silently begging her to take the pain away. And she can't, because she feels it too. She feels ridiculous for fucking her best friend, both slightly drunk, after the boy that was a brother to both of them died. That's not how adults are supposed to deal with things like that.

Still, it's exactly what adults do.

She wonders if she should be drunker for that. Not for sleeping with him, but for stupidly grief sleeping with him.

It doesn't matter, anyway. He turns her on the mattress and soon their clothes are on the floor. She doesn't know if she's the one crying or if the tears on her face are his – they're probably from both of them. All she knows is that it feels good. It hurts, but in a good way.

They roll around several times, trying to boss it out. It hurts less when they're in charge, they focus more on the now, on feeling good, on making the other one feel good, than on why this is happening.

It can't be healthy. Having sex only when bad things happen, it certainly goes against every rule of friendship. Of best friendship.

But sorrows and worries can wait. Her release - physical, emotional – can't.

So she lets go.

Four

Barbara can't really focus on anything. There's a buzz on her ears and her eyes are closed tight hoping that it'll just stop. Air isn't reaching her lungs how it's supposed to and she feels sick.

She tries to think on how she did it when Jason died, how she overcame it. She never got over it, but she doesn't remember feeling this helpless and alone and desperate.

It's only when she hears Dick's voice that she remembers exactly why she didn't feel any of those things.

He looks tired and sad and most of all guilt – he's always guilt after things like this, he needs to stop blaming himself – and she hears something about Wally's name.

Oh. Oh god. He went to tell Wally. He just got back. He just told his best friend that his girlfriend died on his watch.

Oh god, oh god. She tries to focus enough to hear everything and to see past the blur that's in her eyes, but then she realizes that what's impaling her vision and hearing is her own crying.

She moves closer to the rest of the team and when Dick notices her, he moves. She's engulfed in his embrace in no time and it feels good to be comforted, even though she knows he must need it just as her. People start to disperse around them, but she's too lost in her feelings to notice.

Dick starts moving them, but she pays no attention where. They zeta tube still embraced and she recognizes the place they appear as Gotham, but she does nothing to move on her own. They reach the Wayne Manor in the dark of the streets and he leads her over to the bedroom they had given her.

He helps her out of her uniform, but it's nothing more than a friendly gesture. He finds her some old clothes she keeps in the closet and helps her put them on. She still too dazed, too lost to think on her own.

He helps her lie down and lies beside her, keeping his arm around her waist and saying soothing words she isn't listening.

How is he not broken? How can he be fine enough to help her?

She looks up at his face and their eyes meet. She thinks of Jason and she thinks of Artemis and she thinks of how she wants to forget just like she did the other time.

She kisses him hard and hopes he understands that she needs it. He kisses back, but it isn't like she wanted. It isn't desperate, it isn't strong.

It's not enough to take out the pain.

She moves around and ends up on top of him, kissing hardly and demanding he reciprocate it. His hands move to her face and he parts them a little.

"Babs, this isn't-"

"Please." She says before kissing him again. "Please, Dick, I need-" She cuts herself off with a sob and kisses him again immediately. She needs tonot think and he can help her, he can make her mind go blank and her feelings go wild and all she wants right now is to feel the warmth of his body against her.

He still seems a little unsure, so in a quick movement she removes the shirt he helped her put and moves against him, pressing as much skin to him as she can.

He gives up on trying to stop it and complies to her needs.

She hopes the next day she won't feel as bad as she did the last time.

Five

So many things happened so fast in the last few hours that Barbara can't really say what she's feeling right now. There are no many emotions fighting to be stronger that her head aches.

She thinks of Wally, of how he was a good friend and how much she's gonna miss him, and she's sad. And she remembers Artemis and all that she found out and how everything went so wrong so fast, and she's heartbroken. And she thinks of Dick and how he lied to her, of how he had a huge plan under his sleeve that he never told her about, and she feels mad.

She notices his absence in the room and moves on the tower to find him. He's probably hiding, guilt again. And this time she might not want to correct him.

She opens the door to his designated room and stops at the scene she meets. He is on the corner, defeated, sobbing on his knee; his shoulders shake from the strength of his cries.

All of her anger dissolves as she makes her way over and knees in front of the broken man on the floor. He's so lost in his feelings he doesn't even notice her until she touches his hair.

"Dick?" She whispers and he looks at her, still full on crying. "Oh, Dick." It hurts seeing him like this. Every wall crumbles down as he cries over another loved one.

He hugs her then, so tight she feels the air leaving her. He's speaking nonsense to her hair and she can distinguish vague questions such as why him and when will I stop losing people and she realizes she's crying herself. This isn't fair. It's never been fair, but Dick has lost too many already.

They stay there, hugging and crying on the floor, for what feels like hours. He's a mess on her shoulders and she has no idea if there's anything she could say to make him feel better.

"Please don't leave, too." He says in a silent tone and she only understands because his voice is close to her ear.

How can she promise that? He's been her best friend for years, she's sure that nothing could really part them emotionally. But they're heroes, they run around in masks in the middle of the night fighting bad guys. How can one promise to not leave when that's a point to be taken?

"I won't." She says anyway. "I promise." She shouldn't, but she does. She won't leave him willingly, and she knows he needs to hear that right now.

She tries to move him to his bed, but he holds onto her and forces her to stay on the floor. "Don't go."

"Let's just go to the bed, Dick. You need to sleep."

He doesn't cooperate, but doesn't fight either. He's so out of himself it's like he's drunk. He isn't though, she can't smell anything in his breath.

"Babs…" He says as she helps him lie down. He pulls her with him and their faces fall almost together on the pillow. He touches her cheek slowly and looks at her eyes. "Can I…"

She nods and he moves his head the few inches that are keeping them apart. Their lips move slowly and uncertain, like they hadn't done it a thousand times before. They're both fragile right now and they don't want to make the mistake they made all of the other times. They can't pretend this is only physical, because it's not. It never is.

Barbara moves her hand down his chest, indicating that they can go further. She knows he'd never initiate like this, even though she can feel he wants it.

He pulls her closer and she lets herself get lost in her own emotions.

It's calm and slow and so unlike any other time she feels it's a first. He's not fine and she's not fine, so they compensate it with slow hands and lips and soft words that never were there before.

At some point, when she's almost reaching her peak, he murmurs that he loves her. It's so low and gentle she's not sure she isn't imagining it.

She takes a deep breath, sadness, relief and lust swirling around her, and before she can consider it, she says it back.

She wonders if this is a mistake. If these weird relationship they have is a mistake.

She finishes and he finishes with her, as his body collapses covering every bit of her skin, she realizes she doesn't care.

She does love him, and she's not letting him go.

One

She can't really believe any of them when they tell her. She continues to not believe it until the very moment that they get back from the arctic with the redhead in unconscious in their arms.

She truly believes it when he opens his eyes and recognizes Artemis.

Wally is back. Wally is alive and he's back and Artemis is hugging and crying and smiling, and Bart is buzzing with excitement and Barry is speechless at the fact that they really did it and Dick…

Dick is frozen in what seems to be shock. Only metas were allowed in the rescue mission, so this is the first he's seeing of his best friend since heceased five months ago. He's barely breathing and even from the distance, Barbara can see.

Soon enough, they realize Wally should go the medical bay immediately. Everyone locates with him, many not willing to let him go, and the waiting room is crowded. Barry and Bart are leaning on each other for support and she wonders idly if someone might need some help. Her eyes search for Dick and she finds him hugging Artemis, not sure who is comforting who on the crying embrace.

It takes a couple of hours, but people start to dismiss after news of fast recovery. Apparently there's been no actual damage in the trans-dimensional trip he took, but the pashing out and the extreme cold needed a closer look.

Soon, the flash family, Artemis, Dick and her are the only ones there. When he is cleared for visitors, even though he is sleeping, she lets the other four people go in. She can visit him later, they need it more than her.

It's nearly half an hour later when the door opens and Dick comes out.

"Hey. How is he?" She asks as he falls into her open arms.

"He's good. He's still sleeping, but everything seems in order. He should be up and about tomorrow."

"Really?"

"Something about the place he was trapped and his fast metabolism… I didn't really pay attention to that. He was just… there, you know? Alive and breathing and…"

"I know. Come on, you should sleep. We'll come back first thing in the morning."

"We can just stay here. I don't want to go home."

She nods and they move to the bedrooms in the watch tower. It's quiet through all of the way and they're still in silence as they take the armored parts of their costumes to lie down.

As soon as she reaches the bed, his arm searches her waist to pull her close.

Things had been complicated since Wally's death. Dick had quit the team for two months and he didn't get back a 100% at first. This is the first real alone contact they had since that night.

"You okay?" She murmurs after a few minutes of silence, knowing he's not sleeping yet.

He exhales loudly and buries his face on her neck. "Yeah. I can't believe this, but I'm… fine."

She messes with the hand that is draped on her waist. "I'm glad, Dick."

They stay quiet for a couple of minutes more, and then he says, clearer this time.

"I think we should be together."

She freezes. "What?"

"I know these past few months…" He snorts to himself at that. "Who am I kidding, these past few years haven't been easy. I can't talk for you, but I've been trying to pretend and to act like…" He breathes out harshly again. "I love you, Babs. I've told you before and you know it. And it's so stupid that we're not together. Look what could happen, one of us could…" He points to the door and she knows what he means. "We have our chance right here and we just choose not to enjoy it simply because we're idiots."

She turns around in his embrace and looks up at him. She knows the sincerity she's gonna meet in his blue eyes, but she needs to see it.

"I don't want to wait anymore. I'm tired of pretending that I don't love you and that we aren't perfect for each other. Life is not gonna wait for us, Babs."

She kisses him, then, no words left to be said. She just now realizes that she's been waiting forever to hear that. He's right, they've been waiting for nothing and pretending for no reason and it's stupid and she kind of hates herself for it. Life's too short and they know it. She doesn't want to see everything go to waste and then suddenly be on Artemis or Wally's place.

"Okay." She says when they part. It's simple and short but everything that needs to be said.

He smiles and pulls her close and she snuggles in his chest.

"I love you." She says into his chest.

He sighs contently for the first time in months, and replies. "I love you, too, Babs."

They don't have sex that night. They're confident on a type of intimacy that is much better than that.

It feels good.