A.N/ Yeah, I decided to type up all the oneshots I had floating around my brain and post them.
This one is a tie-in between Batman: The Killing Joke (for Oracle), Young Justice, and Teen Titans. I personally ship Dick/Babs like FedEx, but this one is mostly just a friendship fic. It can be seen as a romance though. Whatever floats your boat!
I don't own Teen Titans or Young Justice. All characters and rights go to DC Comics.
Barbara Gordon stared at the screen blankly. The only light in the small room was coming from the several holo-screens and computers that formed a ring around her, casting her face into green shadows. Her elbows were rested on the armrests of her wheelchair, fingers intertwined, and hiding the bottom half of her face. All of the information was in front of her, spread across several panes, waiting to be used. Yet, still, she was apprehensive. He had left long before she dropped the name 'Batgirl'. She wondered if this wasn't something that should be done face to face. She wondered if he was even going to answer the call.
After what felt like hours; but was probably only a minute, she pressed the enter key and waited. The call window opened on the screen.
To someone who didn't know any better, the Teen Titans would seem more like a social club than anything. A bunch of random kids, living in a giant tower, playing video games and eating pizza or tofu all day long, blaring music. Remind anybody of a college dorm?
However, the adolescents were more than capable of handling themselves, as was being proved in the training room. Starfire watched with glee as her boyfriend battled against the air, flipping around and spinning his bo staff, knocking out invisible foes. Cyborg was lifting weights in the corner, doing something like 200 lbs. How anybody could concentrate with an alien princess swooning and gasping and crying out "Marvellous, friend!" every five minutes was a wonder, but then again - these kids fought super villains.
The workout session, however, was interrupted by the arrival of their youngest member, who was wearing a look of confusion on his face.
"Uhhm... guys?"
Robin relaxed his stance, turning to the changeling. "What is it, Beast Boy?"
"There's a weird chick who just contacted the tower... she said she needed to talk to you."
Immediately, all pretences of easygoingness were gone and the team leader was back, tense as ever. "Who is she?" Could it - no. She had no reason to contact them. How would she even know /where/ to contact them?
"She said that she was a friend from Gotham. She's got red hair and glasses. S'all I know. Sorry."
They had never seen Robin run so fast.
Of course, Barbara had already kind of somewhat planned what she was going to say to him. Be logical, strong, the works. But now that he was actually in front of her - well, on her screen, anyways - she almost had... stage fright?
"Boy Blunder." One side of her mouth tipped up in a crooked smile. She was furious, and she was sad, but she still couldn't help but be thrilled to see him again. And not on the news.
"What do you want," he replied flatly. Robin didn't even put enough tone in the sentence to make it a question.
"Harsh! No 'Bratgirl'?"
"No. What do you want."
Barbara was stunned. What had happened to the kid who would cackle evilly as he flew from roof to roof? She still remembered the word games he made.
"Harsh. Not allowed to call an old friend?"
"No."
The girl in the wheelchair rubbed her temples and pushed her glasses up her nose daintily. This was so not going as planned.
"That's too bad, because I really need to talk to you, Dick. I was kind of hoping for a private call, but..."
At this point, the Titans, who were kind of huddled in a circle towards the back of the room, decided it was time to intervene. At the same time.
"Now, there's no need for callin' names!" Cyborg.
"Friend Robin, who is this girl?" Starfire.
"Dude, is that Batgirl?" Beast Boy.
"Not anymore," Babs shrugged helplessly. "Which is kind of why I wanted to chat with Robin over here. Gothamite to Gothamite and what not."
Starfire looked confused as ever. Apparently nobody had filled the alien princess in on her boyfriend's past. Raven started to explain under her breath, while the redheaded warrioress looked more and more confused.
The ex-vigilante ignored them and continued. "I managed to track your signal with your old bat communicator, but you wouldn't answer, so I hacked the Titans one. I was hoping to get your communicator, but I ended up in your living room instead. And would it kill you to pick up your cell phone once and a while?"
There was a rather thick moment of silence when Robin spoke. "Add B-01 to the main signal for my personal comm." With that, he turned his back to the screen and left, heading towards his room.
Barbara watched him go, one eyebrow raised. "Someone needs to take the stick out of the ass," she snorted.
And the screen went black.
"They wanted to drive him crazy, Dick. He tried to use me to drive my dad crazy."
Robin listened to her voice carefully, trying to control his emotions. He could hear her crying, and was almost glad that he didn't have to see this on the screen. And he was infinitely glad that this wasn't happening in the living room, for the Titans to hear.
"And now I'm stuck in this goddamned chair and I can't walk or fight and there go all my dreams of the Olympics, and don't even get me started on the crime fighting -"
"Babs," he interrupted her choked-out speech. "It's okay. I'm here. Well, not actually, but."
"No you're not," she accused. "You're way different. How is it that in Gotham you're happy as a bird, and in Jump you've practically turned into the Bat?"
He didn't answer, scowling off into space.
"Sorry," Barbara muttered. "That was pretty uncalled for. I just... why did I open the stupid door..."
"Do you know what you're going to do now?"
"Well..." The ex-Batgirl hesitated slightly before continuing. "I was thinking that I could still try and help... well, the hero community. Photographic memory and all that. Build up an information base, do some hacking for people. What do you think?"
"..." Robin prodded the idea around in his head, exploring the possibilities. "That's... a great idea, Babs," he said finally, a smile breaking over his face. "You're the best hacker I know, including myself."
"Who are you and what did you do with Dick Grayson?"
The Boy Wonder laughed, surprising himself. "Boo. That's really cool though... S'pretty... whelming, actually."
"YOU DID THE WORD THING!"
Six months later.
Robin had called the team to a meeting, and the Titans were curious as to what their leader wanted. Beast Boy, who had literally been a fly on the wall during the conversation with Batgirl months ago, suspected – hoped – that it might be to do with that. Besides, Robin had been calling her a lot more recently, and he smiled more often, cracking jokes. They had even heard him use weird words every now and then. When Raven told him that an aster was actually a type of daisy, he had merely shrugged.
The Teen Titans filed into the room, chattering, and mostly quieted down at what they saw. Next to a grinning Robin was a redheaded girl with glasses, sitting in a wheelchair. She was dressed casually enough – purple blouse and a pair of jeans – but Cyborg noticed the signs of hidden weapons in the armrests of her chair.
"Titans, meet Oracle. She'll be helping us out a lot, starting from now."
The girl, whom they all recognized to be Batgirl, turned to look at them. "Cyborg, right? Your files on Deathstroke are really out of date."
"Who?" The Cyborg asked, flabbergasted. Was she insulting his systems?
"Slade," Robin corrected. "He goes by his real name in Jump."
"That's stupid," Oracle snorted. She wheeled herself around so she was facing them. "I'll be your ears and eyes outside of missions. I've already gathered some information on most of your Rogues, and I had to go surprisingly deep, so I'm sure it's all new Intel. Oh, and I worked out these." She pulled out ear buds, each the same color as their communicators, with the same T design. "For when your hands are full."
The Titans processed this, accepting the tech and talking all at once.
"So are you not Batgirl anymore?" Beast Boy.
"What frequency are these on?" Cyborg.
"Greetings, new friend!" Starfire.
Oracle merely nodded in their direction, and turned towards her old friend. "You'll have to help me train, though. I've been picking up eskrima lessons, but nobody wants to fight the chick in the chair."
Robin grinned. "I don't think you'll have that problem here."
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