Chapter 3

"There are only three scientists in Gotham with the ability and resources to manufacture a beast like that."

Barb jerked as she came awake with the sudden sound of his voice. She hadn't been sleeping so much as she just wasn't awake, but it still took her eyes a moment to focus on the oversized monitor above them.

"So we split up and check them out?" She kept her gaze on the screen. They'd been sitting here in silence for hours, a silent war momentarily set aside for an unspoken truce.

"First you sleep," he said, catching her off guard. "Then we check them out together. We don't know how many of those things we'll find."

"If I sleep you sleep," she countered astutely ignoring thoughts of working together.

"I'm fine," he rumbled, irritation creeping into his words.

"No way that thing lays you out unless your reflexes are slowed," Barb informs him. "It was fast and it was mean, but it shouldn't have knocked you unconscious—not unless you hadn't slept in days."

He says nothing and she wonders momentarily if they're back to silence.

"Three hours," he concedes. "We meet back here in three hours. You can sleep upstairs."

"Six."

"Three," he says again more forcefully.

"Bruce," she sighs quietly. It's the first time she's used his name since everything went to shit, and it feels like too much, like she's gone too far, but he's falling apart. He's exhausted and injured—and for the first time, when she sees his shoulders bunch slightly at the sound of his name from her lips, she finally begins to believe that maybe what happened between them is hurting him as much as it hurts her.

"Four," he says in barely more than a whisper.

"Six."

He meets her eyes then, really looks at her for the first time in forever and she's shocked at what she sees. There's still rage—there's always rage in him, she doubts it's ever gone—but it's tempered by irritation and...humor? There's a dark gleam and a slight upturn of one lip. It's barely there, so easy to miss, but it's that twinkle, that barely there smile that makes Barbara's heart stutter in her chest and her breath catch in her throat.

"Six," he finally agrees with a slight shake of his head.

Barbara chalks this one up in the win column and stoutly ignores the sudden fluttering in her stomach as she turns and heads upstairs.

When she climbs into the Batmobile exactly six and a half hours later their brief truce appears to have ended. Bruce is suited up, his cowl in place and his mouth is a thin line, emotion locked behind the mask. But as he moves around silently, preparing to launch from the cave, his demeanor seems less threatening somehow; it's an odd thought to have about the Batman. In all of her experience with criminals, super villains, and the JLA Barb has never known anyone who exuded intimidation and sheer terror like the Batman. Even knowing the man behind the mask—knowing him intimately—part of Barb still cringes when he turns the full force of his presence against her. It's what made loving him, and fighting him, so bloody difficult.

But that presence is contained at the moment, directed outward as they fly down the road towards the first lab. For the first time since she let him walk away they're almost comfortable, or at least tolerant, with each other. The feeling is more addictive than she remembered.

The first lab is a bust, but the second one makes her muscles bunch and her eyes narrow. It isn't so much a lab as it is a giant warehouse and there's row after row of clear, huge containment tubes—containment tubes holding row after row of monsters. They're exactly like the one she took down in the apartment building: gigantic, hulking, terrifying, and designed to kill. She and Bruce barely beat one of these bastards, if they were all released at once? Barb couldn't stop the shiver that pushed up from her stomach. Gotham—Gotham couldn't take this. The panic alone they would inspire—people would be out of their minds.

Bruce led the way, moving soundlessly through the lab; Barb followed careful of each step as she passed between two rows of tubes, static monsters bobbing on each side. The synthetic umbilical cord plugged directly into the abdomen, with some type of breathing apparatus attached to the lower face. Bubbles rose gently with each exhale the sounds of growing monster trapped in the silence of each tube. He planted explosives along the tubes as they went; moving in tightening spiral they made their way across the entirety of the warehouse, careful to ensure the destruction of every monster with the push of a button. By the time they've reached the "lab" she's jumping at every rustle of her cape, every squeak in the rafters above. It's too quiet. This was way too easy.

"We need to destroy the research and check for other facilities," he orders her. He's so quiet she feels his words more than hears them, but she nods once in acknowledgment and heads for the computer bank to the right. She made it four steps before a cold voice stopped her.

"The problem with Gotham," a hiss shattered the silence as lights flooded the room, "is all the god damn superheroes. I swear the world used to be a decent place before everyone decided to wallow in spandex."

She threw her hand up as the lights flipped on, trying to see through the sudden glare; she could see Bruce a few feet away, frozen in a crouch.

"How many of my pets do you imagine there are in here?" the voice sneered, moving closer. "20? 30? How many do you think it would take to kill the both of you? I bet not more than 5." She could hear movement in the shadows off to her left on the other side of Batman. She slid one foot back, shifting her weight infinitesimally in preparation.

"You are a stoic bunch aren't you?" the voice asked again snidely. Barb could see a shape moving in the shadows now, separating itself slowly from the deeper darkness behind it. Batman was still crouched, silent and still in front of her, and she kept one eye on him, waiting for some sign, some twitch or signal. "I suppose it doesn't matter if you talk as long as you die."

Barb saw a hand rise from the shadows, the thumb depressing some hidden button gripped in long, slender fingers, as the shape finally coalesced. She was moving, lightning fast, before the woman had stopped talking. Barb didn't know what that button did, but she had an idea—either way she figured it was all bad. Bruce was moving with her, both running for the scientist before her face finished parting the shadows that had hidden it.

Neither of them made it.

She was a tall woman, slender and strangely reptilian, and it was obvious her genetic experiments hadn't remained focused on the monsters surrounding them. Crouching slightly she launched herself straight up into the air, clearing both the Bats before they could lay a finger on her. Barb could see her running lightly across the tops of the containment tubes on all fours and she raised her arm, ready to pursue before a hand on her shoulder stilled her.

"We need to get out of here now," Bruce whispered in her ear. Looking back she saw the white of his exposed skin where his lips were pressed tightly together; he was vibrating slightly with tension. The monsters were waking up.

There were wet pops all around them, like someone just squeezed a balloon through a clogged drain, and groggy growls were echoing out of the darkness. Barb nodded once, following the swish of his cape as they began moving away from the rising snarls. They raised their grapples together and she pushed down, but as Bruce rose into the night, away from the danger and the explosion they were about to trigger, Barb remained on the ground.

Her freaking grapple-gun had misfired. In the space between one heartbeat and the next Barb cursed Bruce and his stupid toys, her life, and Bruce again.

She was moving again immediately, heading for the shipping doors she knew lined the back of the wall—the wall that was on the exact opposite of where she was now—the wall she was separated from reaching by a growing chorus of snuffling grunts and vicious howls.

"Ready or not, here I come."

She ran back into the rows, camouflaged by the shadows and silent as the air split around her. Bruce would have realized by now she wasn't behind him; he probably wasn't going to detonate the charges until he knew she was clear. Probably. She skidded on the floor as two giant bodies crashed through a tube in front of her. The monsters had found each other, and apparently they hated themselves as much as everything else. She slid along another tube, keeping it between her and the wrestling bodies as the nightmarish sounds of fangs ripping through flesh and howls of pain echoed around her.

She was almost there; she could see the lighter shade of metal against concrete in the dark. She'd have to blow a hole in the door to escape; she also needed to blow the rest of the charges before any more of these things woke up. But then there was no more time for thinking. They'd found her.

The roar gave her warning and she ducked, rolling to her right as she felt claws tear through the air above her. It was chasing her, dogging her heels and impossibly fast for its size. Grabbing the top of another tube she pulled herself up, swinging up and clear as it charged below. The monster roared again in rage and she felt more than saw the shifting direction as everything else changed course and headed her way. Pulling another charge from her belt she primed it and winged it at the door behind her, hoping her aim was good. Not stopping to think she set it off, squatting on top of the tube and using her cape to shield herself from the debris. Movement below her feet made her blink the spots away from her eyes and she saw the tube below her discharging its liquid, the gelatinous stuff pouring out from the bottom into drains on the floor.

She needed to go, but she was well and truly surrounded now, the explosion at the door doing little to distract the teeming mass circling her tube. Flipping a switch on her detonator Barb hoped for the best and leapt as she pushed.

The charges went off at once, roars drowned out by explosions and debris. Barb felt the heat scorch her as the shock wave threw her out of the warehouse, battering her in the air so she slammed into the ground hard, off balance and out of control. Pushing up to her hands and knees she tried to clear her head but everything hurt. She couldn't hear over the roaring in her ears and her vision was spotty and screwed again from the sudden burst of flame. No monsters were trying to kill her, though, so that was something.

She'd just begun cataloging the aches and pains in her body when she was grabbed roughly and hauled up against a granite chest. Blinking rapidly she knew it was Bruce, even though she still couldn't see his face clearly; she knew it was him as soon as his hands closed around her upper arms, knew it was him as soon as she felt his chest beneath her fingertips through her gloves and his costume. She knew it was him as soon as she felt his lips crushed against hers.

It was an intensely unBatman-like thing to do but she couldn't care, not when he was kissing her like everything he needed to survive was in her—kissing her like every ounce of his being needed her. Not kissing him back never crossed her mind. All of her reasons, all of her very, very good reasons, for walking away from him, for staying as far away from him as she could evaporated in the haze of lust that ran like jet fuel through her veins; she was pretty sure she was moaning against his lips, her hands scrabbling frantically against his costume. She wanted him inside her; she needed to her body wrapped around his. She was jumping then, her arms and legs curling around him desperate and urgent, monsters, mad scientists, and still burning explosions forgotten.

Bruce pulled away from her mouth and she whimpered, but he didn't put her down, didn't make her relinquish her death grip on his body. Instead he buried his face in her neck, his breath sawing out of him in pained gasps as his muscles trembled beneath her.

"Oh my god you're hurt!" she gasped, trying to let go, to push off of him as suddenly as she jumped him. His arms stayed locked around her, though, his hands digging into her thighs slightly, pressing her more firmly against him.

"No," he ground out like speaking was beyond him. "Not...here."

"I can't," she fought, trying to wrest herself back under control, "I don't want..." her voice trailed off before she finished as another squeeze of her fingers made her forget how to talk. If he was injured she didn't want to hurt him, but she couldn't stop; her need to protect him was at war with her need to make him scream her name, but he went stiff at her words, his face pulling back from her neck and then her feet were on the ground and he was setting her apart from him, putting distance between them.

Barb was unsteady on her feet, confusion and arousal combining in her battered body and she could only stare at him, hurt coloring her eyes behind the mask. He—he didn't want her? She doubled over for a second, fighting for breath as he stayed plastered against the alley wall, pushing himself as far away from her as he could.

"Let's head back to the car," he finally growled and set off into the shadows cold and implacable like they hadn't been clinging to each other seconds before. It was too much, too similar to before except this time she'd sacrificed her pride along with her intentions. Her heart gave another thud in her chest before stuttering out, everything going numb. She was shutting down, her emotions numbing out as her brain couldn't process.

It was a long walk back to the car; with her gun broken they couldn't fly through the city using rooftops to hide them from prying eyes and neither suggested he carry her. Moving slowly, sticking to shadows, she followed his lead ignoring the trembling in her hands and the way her knees kept giving out. He was stiff in front of her, his movements jerky and sharp, and when he lowered himself into the Batmobile it was without a word, refusing to meet her eyes. Barb climbed in on the other side, crossing her arms over her chest as she tried to make sense of what just happened.

"I'm...sorry." She jerked upright at his words, her head spinning on her neck as her gaze sought his. He was sitting completely immobile, his hands gripping the wheel tightly making no move to fire up the engines.

"What?" she whispered harshly, sure she'd misheard him.

"I'm sorry," he pushed out again, faster and more angry this time. "I shouldn't have—I should have respected your wishes."

Her poor brain. Her poor, beleaguered, confused brain. Of course he wasn't apologizing for breaking her heart. He was apologizing for—hell, she had no idea what he was apologizing for.

"What are you talking about?" she finally sighed. God she was so tired of this. So tired of things always being on his terms; they had sex when he wanted to have sex. They talked when he wanted to talk. Control issues didn't begin to describe trying to love him.

"I—" he stopped, looking at her then with confusion turning his mouth down more, "I shouldn't have kissed you back there. I know you said—we're done. You made that clear, made it clear you didn't want me to touch you again and I...I thought you were dead." His last words came out as a whisper, almost like he would give anything to stop himself from talking but couldn't.

"I'm not," Barb started, unsure what she wanted to say. "I'm not angry at you. For that. Back there."

Sometimes she wondered how she could make Mensa members look like idiots and still be reduced to a babbling teenager whenever she was in Bruce's presence. Her dad would be so disappointed in her.

"But you—" he trailed off. The great Batman at a loss for words. Barb would have reveled in this moment if she weren't so focused on not losing her shit, not cracking wide open and begging him to let her have him, however she could. However little she could. "You said you didn't want me. You said you wanted to stop."

"What the hell are you talking about?" He couldn't be that stupid could he?

"I said we needed to find—privacy—and you said you didn't want to." He could. He really, really could.

"I thought you were hurt." She said it slowly, enunciating each word like she was explaining quantum physics to a six year old. "I didn't want to hurt you. I definitely didn't want to not stop."

"You thought I was hurt?"

"World's greatest detective my ass," she grumbled, and then she was out of her seat, squeezed on his lap between his seeking mouth and the steering wheel.

His mouth was rough against her own the roller-coaster of their emotions magnifying everything. His hands everywhere, pushing her uniform up, exposing skin as his mouth, tongue, and teeth assaulted her; he let go of her side and she whined against his mouth but then they were back, exposed now, his questing fingers free of his gloves so that his skin could brush across hers, dig into hers. She followed his lead, ripping her own gloves off and reaching down, pulling the material of his top free, her fingernails scrapping across his stomach, bruising as she grabbed his sides and whimpering when his hand finally found its way to her nipple.

He stretched her top up, exposing one breast awkwardly but she didn't care, couldn't care because suddenly his mouth was there, nipping and sucking and she couldn't think, couldn't focus past anything but the heartbeat between her legs, her clenching muscles as she writhed against him, trapped and needy.

"Off." For a second she thought he meant she needed to get off him, needed to go back to her own seat and she bit his neck, pulling the material down and out of the way, finding an exposed tendon below his cowl. His body shuddered beneath her and his hips jerked upward, seeking solace through their layers of clothing.

He dug his fingers into her pants, the snap on her utility belt sounding like a cannon to her ears. Pulling the belt free he threw it somewhere over his head, unsnapping her pants and tugging the material down. "Off," he growled again, desperation making him pant around the word.

Understanding now she went up on her knees, her head bent forward awkwardly as her back pressed into the wheel behind her, trying to lean back and over so he could pull the material down past her knees. Why the hell was her uniform so tight? It took a lot of tugging, a few smacks of her head against the roof of the Batmobile, and the occasional giggle that turned into moans as he kept kissing her, forgetting about her pants every time their mouths found each other, but they managed to pull her pants down past her knees. The angle was weird and she pretzeled herself to fit. Thank god for her training. Her feet were trapped now, her knees on either side of his legs and her ankles bound together at his calves under the dash, but she was free. She was exposed.

His chest hummed with need under her hands and he dug his fingers in roughly, probing and seeking for that one spot that made her breath explode in a muted sound between her clenched teeth.

"Bruce," she gasped. "Bruce please." His fingers were there, right there like he knew exactly where to go, exactly how to touch her. Her knees clenched against his thighs and she fought not to scream bloody murder. Maybe he was the world's greatest detective after all.

His mouth was back on hers and she sucked on his tongue, reveling in the way it made his hand convulse against her, his hips, still fully clothed, rubbed and jerked between her knees. She wanted more. She needed more. Letting go of his back she dropped her hands to his lap, her fingertips brushing over the stretched material, stopping to stroke him in tandem with the rhythm her mouth set up against his and she felt her lips curve in a wicked smile when his own pleasure made him choke on a groan.

Pulling his own belt roughly out of the way she tossed it, unknowing and uncaring of where it landed. His pants were as tight as her own, but uncontrollable lust rendered her capable of solving any problem. He grimaced slightly as she freed him, maybe she was too rough, but then he was there, hot and pulsing in her hand and she stroked up and down to make it all better. He threw his head back, his teeth clenching and his fingers left her, moving to grab her wrist and pull her hand away from him.

"Now ," he pushed out, fighting for control. She nipped at his lower lip, wanting to make some witty remark, to push his control just a little further, but the only noise that escaped was a whimper as he lifted her lining himself up against her, and shoved down impaling her hard and fast in one sharp thrust.

She screamed, her body convulsing around him the feeling too much, too full. It was just a little too hard, a little too rough, but the pain wasn't pain—at least, it wasn't bad pain. It was pain that made her toes curl in her boots and her knees scissor on his hips as every muscle in her body tightened, winding her up like a top. She didn't know—no one told her—it wasn't like they hadn't been rough with each other before but this was..different.

He began moving them, urging her to rock her hips against him and every stroke, every thrust made her see stars; she was coming apart around him, her body locked in the throes of something that just shut her down. That sensation of being filled, of being stretched had morphed and grown and was coming undone as wave after wave of fireworks exploded inside her pushing another scream from her lips. He was slamming upward now, all control lost and it felt like he was touching all of her at once. She was too tender, her nerves jacked under her skin but she couldn't pull away, couldn't stop the blissed out joy hammering her.

She screamed as she broke apart but It didn't stop—the pleasure pulsing through her as her hips jerked, caught in his grip and her vision fuzzed as all the blood rushed upwards into her head. She couldn't even hear Bruce's roar when he held her down, buried inside her and stilled.

Her head fell onto his shoulder, breath coming in gasps as they clung to each other, awareness starting to settle back in. It wasn't until she could feel her body again, utterly relaxed and stretched taut simultaneously, that she realized they both still had their masks on.

It was too long and not long enough before they moved apart. Slowly, the awkwardness magnified now they weren't both high on overwhelming need, she disentangled herself, falling back into her seat, her trapped feet making her movements clumsy and slow. They didn't say anything as she pulled her pants up, rearranging her clothes as he tucked himself back in, reaching behind him, seeking for their belts. They needed to talk. She knew they needed to talk but what the hell was there to say? They weren't back together. They couldn't be back together. Dear universe she wanted to be back together but—he was still Bruce. He was still cold, calculating, controlling—the list went on and on and on. Loving him wasn't enough, being loved by him wasn't enough. It wasn't that she needed attention or time but she needed...she needed. She needed and he couldn't give, wouldn't let himself give something, anything.

He avoided her gaze even as she avoided his, and she turned her head to focus on the broken scenery of Gotham as he flew down the streets. The curse pushed itself out with her sigh, so soft she wasn't even aware she'd spoken aloud.

"Fuck."